Next To Normal
by DarkElements10
Summary: "There's people that figure if they hang out with you, all of a sudden they're going to be successes. I've had two or three stalkers in my life." –Dustin Diamond. Dak/OC WayneWayne/OC -SHORT STORY-
1. Chapter 1: Contradicting Human Nature

**Next to Normal**

**By: Riley  
**

**Summary ****- "There's people that figure if they hang out with you, all of a sudden they're going to be successes. I've had two or three stalkers in my life." –Dustin Diamond. Dak/OC WayneWayne/OC**

* * *

**Chapter 1**

_Contradicting Human Nature_

"Are you bringing soda?" Dak Zevon asked as he tilted his head to the side, keeping his phone between his ear and his shoulder, his hands dipped in soapy water as he cleaned some dishes in the sink. "Who cares if it's Diet? We'd drink it anyway."

"Ok, I cleaned my room," Lizzie Zevon, Dak's little sister said as she walked into the kitchen, rolling her eyes. "Anything else that you need, _Dad_?" She added with a bit of an attitude as she walked over to the pantry and opened the door. "Don't you think we have enough chips?" She asked, her green eyes scanning over the nine different chip bags that were sitting in front of her face.

"Hold on," Dak, very carefully, removed his hands from the water and shook them off before taking his phone from his shoulder and setting it on the counter behind him. He turned around, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at his sister. "Go back upstairs and change," he commented after looking her over.

"Why?" Lizzie frowned as she turned around, her blonde ponytail hitting her in the face. She looked down at her clothes. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"I could tell you about 20 things that are wrong with it, all of which being that your skirt is too short," Dak said.

Lizzie stuck out her tongue before turning back to the pantry, loading up all the bags of chips in her arms. She turned around and dropped them onto the counter, being sure to make as much noise as possible, knowing that it was getting on her older brother's nerves. Dak gave her a warning look before turning back around and grabbing his phone. He put it up to his ear before jerking it back, looking at it, and then put it up to his ear again.

"No, dude, it doesn't matter, just grab whatever you want and get your ass over here!" Dak said and hung up the phone. He set it aside before pulling the plug out of the sink and turning on the faucet so he could do a final rinse of the dishes.

"You know you don't have to do that," Lizzie pointed out, noticing that he was actually hand washing dishes.

"Unlike mom, I don't want to be lazy." Dak replied under his breath.

Dak Zevon, on the outside, looks like he has everything. He's the teen icon with a following of girls from 5-14 years old, and had been on a lot of PopTiger magazine covers as well as having page spreads inside it. But after his auditions for TV musicals started to slow down, he moved onto bigger and better things and had gotten some work done on Broadway. Having moved from Wisconsin to LA to work on his career, he would say that he was really blessed as well as lucky. He has a little sister that was, somewhat, following in his footsteps by going to a Dance Academy and booking some small music video job, and his parents were casting directors.

But what many people don't know about LA was that it looked so glamorous and unattainable on the outside. Everyone looked perfect; they had the perfect jobs, hair styles, clothes, families, lives. They went to movie premiers, booked casting jobs, were friends with so many celebrities, and had the money to buy as many cars as they wanted. But that wasn't how LA really was, and Dak was one of the few people that could vouch for that first hand.

"Trust me, Bro, you're anything but lazy." Lizzie reassured him. She perked up as the doorbell rang and she raced through the massive kitchen and to the foyer. "I got it!" She called.

Dak smiled to himself as he grabbed his baseball cap off of the island and stuck it on his head backwards, sliding his phone into his cargo shorts pockets as he followed after her. He grinned when he spotted his best friend, Wally 'WayneWayne' Dooley standing in the foyer next to Lizzie. He looked somewhat annoyed as Lizzie seemed to be going on and on about something that he probably could care less about.

"Dude," Dak grinned as he walked over to his friend. "What took you so long?"

"You won't believe how many types of sodas there are out there," WayneWayne replied as he took the bag and shoved it into Dak's hands. "It's even harder to concentrate on remember which one a group of people likes when you have your sisters screeching in your ears about not knowing where your car is." He shrugged as he shook his head. "Just be glad that Lizzie is sane."

Dak laughed to himself as he nodded, dropping the bag onto the floor. He became friends with WayneWayne pretty quickly after WayneWayne had been put onto the show the Ziggle Zaggles. After moving from Texas to LA with his family; WayneWayne had become desperate to find an acting job, especially since his father was a famous TV producer that worked in LA and Vancouver. Having a bit of a singing background, he went to Arthur Griffin in Rocque Records to get a spot in Big Time Rush. But he was so desperate for the position as well as shedding his old part of 'Towel Boy' on Magic Middle School, that he adopted the persona WayneWayne, a gangster from Detroit. Alienating Big Time Rush and almost getting Kendall kicked out of the band; WayneWayne was kicked out and then placed onto the Ziggle Zaggles. Dak had met him one day when they both went to audition for a small roll on a TV show and they had become best friends ever since.

"So where's the car that they were looking for?" Lizzie asked, jumping into the conversation.

"Apparently Natalie and Jaycee both didn't realize that Mom took it so she could get some errands done and drop me off here, while Dad was at work," WayneWayne replied with a slight smirk. "Although she had left a note in plain sight."

"Your sisters are funny." Lizzie laughed to herself.

"If you think so, you can have them."

"I'll trade you for Dak!"

"Gee, thanks," Dak rolled his eyes. He heard a car door slam and some voices from outside and headed over towards the door once more. "Oh, I think the Jacksons are here." He commented as he grabbed the doorknob and opened the front door.

The Jacksons, now the Jackson-McGuires, Dak had met a few days after they had come out to LA to try and break into the music industry in the US. Originally from Sydney, Australia, they're the band the very famous band the DarkElements. With five CDs originally under their belt, they came over to the US to try and work on re-releasing them there, while they continued to work on new ones. Dak was the first friend that they had met in LA as he had been hired by their music producer and their manager (at the time) Ronan McGuire and Robert Jackson, to help them break into the music industry as well as the media there as it was different from the industry and media back in Sydney. After working with them for a couple of years, they decided to return the favor and had been hired by Gustavo Rocque to help Big Time Rush as they came to LA to start working on their CDs. Now Big Time Rush having two CDs released and planning on working on a third one.

"Hey guys!" Dak waved as he quickly hopped down the porch steps and the sidewalk, down the driveway. The ground was hotter than he had expected, and he didn't want to get blisters on his feet. "How's it going? How's Ronan?"

"Not bad," Riley Jackson-McGuire, the oldest of them at 18 commented as she carefully balanced a cake plate on her right hand as she held tightly onto a dog's leash in her left. She handed the cake plate to her twin sister, Rhuben, so she could hold onto the leash with both hands.

"He has meetings all day, so he was glad that we had something to do." Rhuben added as she turned her blue eyes to him. "He says to thank you for inviting us over."

"Eh," Dak shrugged as he took the plate from her hands. "I was bored anyway," he looked right into her eyes as he gave her a warm smile.

"I'll bet." She commented, tucking her hair behind her ears.

"I hope you don't mind that we brought our dogs along," Patrick Jackson-McGuire, 16 years old, commented as let go of a leash that he was carrying to let a black and white husky puppy run around the front lawn, sniffing the ground as it went. Noah, Patrick's twin, let go of the leash he was carrying, allowing his own mostly black husky puppy to follow it. "Ronan didn't want them in the apartment for a while if we were going to be gone all day."

"Its fine," Dak replied as he turned around and led the way back up the long driveway. "Our backyard is big enough for them to run around carefully." He shifted the cake plate in his hands. "What kind of a cake is this?"

"It's a cheesecake!" Sydney Jackson-McGuire, the youngest at 11 said with a smile. "Chocolate Peanut Butter," he licked his lips. "Our favorite!" He then ran over to Lizzie and threw his arms around her waist in a hug. "Hi Lizzie, how are you?"

"I'm great Syd, how are you doing today?" Lizzie asked as she hugged him back.

"Good."

Lizzie looked up and turned her attention to Patrick and Noah, a toothy smile working its way onto her face. "Hey guys, how's it going?" she asked two of her best friends. She became friends with them VERY quickly, as Dak would say it; it's because of the fact that she's a flirt. And after Katie, her brother, and their friends moved to LA, the four of them became their own little group of friends as the older teenagers became a group of friends.

"That reminds me," Dak turned to Riley and Rhuben. "Do you think her skirt is too short?"

Rhuben tilted her head to the side and looked at her friend before looking over at Riley, who raised her eyebrows in reply. Rhuben placed her hands on her hips and gave a gentle smile. "Maybe a little," she commented.

"It'll probably be better if you wore shorts or leggings underneath it," Riley added helpfully as she was dragged forward by the large St. Bernard that was straining at his leash. "At least, the next time you want to wear it, at least."

"Alright," Lizzie replied as she led the way back into the house.

"So you give _me_ a lot of grief about you changing your skirt, but you barely bat an eye when they suggest it?" Dak asked incredulously as he closed the door behind them and locked it before following them towards the kitchen.

"They're girls," Lizzie replied pointedly. "They know what they're talking about."

"She's right though," Patrick agreed as he placed a hand on Dak's shoulder. His blue eyes twinkled mischievously. "They're the ones that make us guys look good, by being right about our clothing, but in exchange, we're right about everything else." He laughed as Noah rolled his eyes and slapped him on the back of the head.

"So pool's that way, we're gonna eat out there before we start to watch movies," Dak said, motioning with his foot. He turned to WayneWayne as the others headed into the backyard. "D'you mind helping me with this stuff?" He asked WayneWayne. He tilted his head back. "The sodas are still in the foyer, I have a cooler you can put them in."

"No problem," WayneWayne replied and he jogged back over to the foyer to grab the bag that he had brought.

Dak dropped the cake plate onto the counter and started to gather all of the bags of chips when the phone rang. He dropped everything that was in his arms before sliding over the linoleum to the phone that sat on the wall by the refrigerator. Grabbing it off of its cradle, Dak looked at the Caller ID, seeing that it said UNKNOWN before answering it.

"Hello?" he asked, putting the phone to his ear. Not getting a response, he pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the connection. Seeing that they were still connected, he put it back up to his ear. "Hello? _Hello?_" Shrugging, Dak replaced the phone on its cradle and gathered the food once more.

"Wrong number?" WayneWayne guessed as he walked back into the kitchen, the large grocery bag in his arms.

"I guess," Dak shrugged as he walked through the kitchen to the open den and out the back door onto the deck. He placed the cake plate and chip bags onto the table and looked around the backyard. Lizzie was skimming the large pool, Patrick and Noah were setting up some pool chairs, and Rhuben was helping Sydney put on some sunscreen.

"Riles, what are you doing?" WayneWayne called when he spotted Riley back the back corner of the backyard, kneeling by a bush.

Riley turned, holding her hand up over her face to shield herself from the sun. "Rugby's growling at something," she replied, motioning to her St. Bernard, who had his head shoved into the bushes. "Rugby, stop that!" She snapped.

"Do you see anything?" Dak asked as he walked down the steps of the deck and across the backyard over to her. He grabbed the dog's collar and pulled him back before kneeling down and pushing the bushes aside himself. He shuffled forward a few steps as he continued to look through the foliage. He shrugged as he backed up. "I don't see anything."

"Sorry about that," Riley apologized as she bent down to rub Rugby's head, flopping his ears back and forth. "He doesn't usually growl like that unless something's there." She added, patting him on the head before giving the motion for him to lie down. Rugby quickly did as he was told.

"Well, whatever it was, it's not there anymore," Dak commented as he walked back over to his friends. "I wouldn't worry too much about it."

* * *

**A/N: **Meh, my first chapters are always kind of short and uneventful. Anyways, I had the idea for this for a while, but it wasn't until History class this morning that I figured out EVERYTHING that was going to happen in this story. So this is a story where the only characters that are there are Dak, WayneWayne, their families, and my OCs. Big Time Rush, Mrs. Knight, Katie, Kelly, Jo, Camille, and Stephanie will show up once, but other than that, they will be mentioned from time to time.

So this will be a long(ish) story, anywhere from 20-40 chapters, and the chapters are going to be longer than my normal ones, except for this one, so you can look forward to that.

I hope you guys liked this first chapter.

Cheers,

-Riles


	2. Chapter 2: Life Changing Events

**Chapter 2**

_Life Changing Events_

* * *

"Hey Baby Brother!"

WayneWayne rolled his eyes as he closed the front door to his house. He kicked off his shoes and tossed his drawstring bag aside to the floor before walking into the kitchen where his two older sisters, Jacey and Natalie, were sitting at the kitchen counter, looking over a magazine. His upper lip curled at the greeting, having been called that his whole life rather than his real name, which he hated as well.

"How was the party?" Natalie asked, kicking her feet back and forth. "How's Girlfriend?"

WayneWayne let out a short sigh, already know that what he was going to say wasn't going to make a difference in the first place. "Hanging out was cool," He replied as he rested his arms on the end of the counter. "Like it always is when I'm hanging out with my friends." He then gave his sisters a pointed stare. "And she has a name, and she's _not my girlfriend!"_

"She said she was," Jacey pointed out.

"To get you all off of my back, since you jumped to the conclusion about it," WayneWayne replied. He threw his hands up into the air. "But it's not like you guys believe me anyway." He added. He leaned forward. "What're you looking at anyway?"

"Baby Magazine," Natalie said as she snatched the magazine from Jacey's hands and held it up so her brother could see. "Jacey's looking at some furniture and strollers and what not for the baby." She pointed to a picture of a crib that was decked out in a jungle theme. "What do you think about this?"

WayneWayne rested his chin in his hands as he scanned the crib that she was showing him. He tilted his head to the side and sucked his teeth before reaching out and pushing the magazine back down onto the counter. "I think that this crib, will give my nephew nightmares. Considering the fact that they put a massive tiger above his head that looks like it's going to eat him alive!"

Jacey shook her head as she took the magazine back from Natalie. "Your sarcasm isn't appreciated."

"Yeah, but you're stuck with me." WayneWayne replied with a warm smile. "Anyway, I thought that mom was going to help you with everything." He added, pulling himself up onto the counter.

"And why would she do that?" Jacey asked as she flipped through the magazine once more.

"Considering the fact that you two are 25 and 22 years old and still can't seem to figure out when _not_ to butt into other people's business." WayneWayne replied as he pointed to Jacey and then Natalie. "It seems to me that you're going to need all the help that you can get." He reached into the pocket of his trunks and pulled out his cell phone as it started to ring. "Hello?"

"I bet it's Girlfriend," Natalie teased. "Tell her I said 'hi'."

WayneWayne gave her an odd look, his phone still up to his ear. "Dak isn't my girlfriend." He commented loud enough for Dak to hear him through the phone.

"Hm, he might as well be, they some sort of weirdo bromance going on." Natalie commented.

WayneWayne gave them the finger with his free hand as he turned back to his phone. "You see what I have to deal with day after day?" He asked into his phone, ignoring the faces that his sisters were giving him. "Anyway, is there _any_ particular reason as to why you called me as _soon _as I got home?" He then strained to hear. "And is there any reason as to why there is a screeching sound in the background?"

"Because you left like two minutes before I got the news," Dak replied, his voice was louder than it needed to be. If WayneWayne had to guess, it was probably due to the fact that he had one hand over his free ear as he tried hard to focus on the phone call. "And that screeching sound is Lizzie as she hasn't stopped freaking since I told her. Anyway, you know how I auditioned for Legally Blonde? I got the part of Warner Huntington III. It's not on Broadway or anything, but it's still going to be so awesome!"

"Wow, congrats, dude." WayneWayne nodded, impressed. "Sounds like it'll be a fun show." He paused. "I'm guessing I'm the last one to know about this."

"That's what happens when you leave early," Dak replied. "It sounds really cool."

"Screw you." WayneWayne swiftly replied. "So do your parents know or…"

"Yeah, I told them, but you know them, they probably forgot right as soon as I told them, so I'm not holding my breath about it." Dak replied. "I have to go though, I need to research for my role, and if I shut Lizzie in the basement I'll at least have some peace and quiet for an hour." There was a shuffling sound and two dull thuds. "I gotta go."

"Do I want to know?" WayneWayne asked.

"No, but if you see my face on the local news for murder you'll probably have an idea why." Dak replied before he hung up the phone.

WayneWayne laughed to himself as he hung up the phone and crossed his legs as he grabbed a banana from the fruit basket sitting beside him. He looked it over for a second, reading the card that was sitting along with it and turned back to Jacey who was currently looking over different paint colors for the room.

"How many fruit baskets did you get after announcing your pregnancy?" He asked.

"Just about as much as I had gotten when I announced that I was getting married." Jacey grumbled in reply.

Being the youngest of the Dooley's, WayneWayne was more than happy to know that while he was growing up, the endless torment that his sisters brought him was going to be over as soon as they had gotten married. But he had spoken too soon as the older they got, the more they teased him. Jacey is his eldest sister at 25, but when she's around Natalie she acts like a 12 year old girl and vice versa. When she announced that she was engaged to her, now husband, Sam Nelson, the whole family was excited for her. WayneWayne was very excited as he got along with Sam quickly and liked him enough so that he wouldn't worry about the way he would treat his sister. He was even excited about the prospect that they would have a baby in the future. But now that they were actually going to have a baby, he, every now and then, wondered if it was a good thing since it was all anyone ever talked about.

But of course, that wouldn't stop his sisters from teasing the youngest sibling of the family.

"Oh, that reminds me, Dad wanted to talk to you." Natalie said as she leaned back in her chair, pulling her dark hair over her shoulders. "Something about going back to Vancouver for something." She watched as WayneWayne moved his jaw to the side. "What, do you not want to go?"

That couldn't be further from the truth. As Mr. Dooley was a TV producer that specialized in shows in the US as well as Canada, it wasn't uncommon for him to be away from home for most of the week. WayneWayne had even gone with him for a couple of the shows as he had ended up getting parts in some of the shows and movies he had been producing at the time. Because of that, Vancouver was like a second home to him. Well, third if you counted his home back in Dallas.

"That's not it," WayneWayne replied with a shake of his head.

"Aww," Jacey cooed as she reached out and ruffled WayneWayne's hair. "You don't want to leave Girlfriend?"

"Shut up!" WayneWayne shoved Jacey's hand away from his head. "If it does have anything to do with going to Vancouver, I don't know if I'm even going to go." He crossed his arms over his chest. "I'll just wait and see what he has to say.

"Wow, way to be 19 years old," Natalie commented as she shook her head. "Way to be a killjoy." WayneWayne flipped off his sisters once more. Natalie then gasped loudly as Jacey moved her hands to the slight baby bump that she had. "Wally Dooley! What will your nephew think if he sees you doing that?"

"He doesn't even have eyes yet!" WayneWayne defended himself. He let out a groan as he tilted his head back. "You guys are _so_ weird!" He jumped down from the counter and headed towards the stairs to go to his room.

"It must be genetic!" Jacey called after him. "Because you're the weirdest one out of all of us!"

WayneWayne resisted the urge to throw his drawstring bag back at them as he picked it up off of the floor by the front door. Grabbing his shoes in his free hand, he bounded up the stairs to his room, kicking the door shut behind him as he tossed his stuff to his already cluttered floor. He then walked over to his dresser, grabbed some clothes, and went to take a quick shower. Once finished, he got out and wrapped a towel around his waist before walking over to the sink and grabbed onto the edges of it, closing his eyes.

The silence in the room shifted, the atmosphere felt different somehow. WayneWayne cautiously opened his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief when his vision fixated on the steam smeared mirror. There was a pounding in his head as though blood was flowing through his body faster and harder. He felt strange; he leaned against the cold tiles, hoping that the pounding in his head would subside quickly. He then opened his eyes and picked up his hairbrush from the corner of the sink. He blinked several times at his image, his vision shifted several times between an image of himself and of… himself but a different image.

There was his image, reflected as it's always been. Short brown hair, dark brown eyes, average skin, average hair, average looks; but there was another image exactly on top of my own but slightly out of phase somehow. But then the image changed so he looked older, more tired, and more…alone. The image disappeared and was replaced by his own regular image. The hairbrush fell from his hand and he grabbed the sides of the sink to ground himself. WayneWayne closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then picked up the hairbrush and resumed what he was doing before without looking back at his reflection.

* * *

"So, are you _ever_ going to ask Riley out or are you just going to have your family keep thinking that you're actually dating her?" Dak asked the next day at his house as he lounged around on the couch, watching TV.

WayneWayne, who was lying down on the couch opposite of him turned and gave him an odd look. "Is that the only reason that you asked me over today? Just to ask me that question?"

"No," Dak replied as he shook his head. "But it's pretty much the only reason that I invited them over today, besides the fact that Lizzie is hanging out with Patrick, Noah, and Sydney." He flashed his teeth in a smile as the doorbell rang and WayneWayne fixed him with a hard stare. "I thought it would be funny."

"What's funny is the fact that I have a better chance of getting a date, when you keep getting turned down by Rhuben." WayneWayne replied as he sat up and grinned at Dak evilly. "Over, and over, and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and-"

"I get it." Dak interrupted his best friend. "But it doesn't matter, because I know she likes me too. It's just a matter of time."

WayneWayne wasn't kidding, almost as soon as Dak had met Rhuben Jackson-McGuire, he fell for her and wasn't scared to make it known. He flirted with her a lot, and most of the time it didn't seem like she was receptive to it at all, while other times she seemed to be flirting right back at him. But every time he asked her out, which was almost as long as he had known her, she continuously turned him down, without seeming to even think about it. Usually, people would understand at that point and take the hint, not wanting to strain things anymore. But Dak was the kind of person that never gave up on anything until he was completely sure that there was no way that it was going to happen. It was like his dream of becoming an actor, many people had told him that his dream would never come true, but it had so far.

"Are you sure?" WayneWayne asked as he held up his fingers and wiggled them. "Because I don't think I got to the actual amount of times that you've been turned down yet." He got up off of the couch and followed Dak to the foyer. "I think I have about 100 more."

"Why am I friends with you?" Dak turned to WayneWayne.

WayneWayne just smiled in reply before shoving him forward. After having met the teen icon, he had asked himself that question many times. It didn't take long for WayneWayne to figure it out; it was because they were somewhat outsiders of their large group of friends. They hung out the most while BTR hung out together, Jo, Camille, and Stephanie hung out together, and you could hardly pry the Jacksons apart from each other (although they would never admit it).

Dak reached the front door just as his parents came down the stairs. WayneWayne looked them over and saw that they seemed to be very dressed up. He looked at Dak out of the corner of his eyes, but Dak didn't show anything on his face; he mad sure that it was completely neutral. WayneWayne didn't call him out on it. He knew that Dak was embarrassed at the fact that his parents weren't really around a lot, it didn't seem like they cared about their kids that much either. So he didn't let anyone know about it, but he had told WayneWayne, knowing that he wouldn't tell anyone else.

"So, who do we have here?" Mr. Zevon asked as he straightened out his tie. He gave the twin girls a smile and they gave a short wave in reply.

"Ah," Dak quickly moved to his parents' side as he leaned against the banister of the stairs. "Mom, Dad, you remember my friends?" He motioned over to WayneWayne, Riley, and Rhuben.

Mrs. Zevon looked up and gave a peculiar smile. The best way to explain it would be by saying that it looked like her smile was plastic, or that she had too much Botox injected into her face. The corners of her mouth barely turned up, but she smiled so wide that all of her teeth and gums were showing. "Oh, yeah, I remember, Wally, Raleigh, and…" she looked at Rhuben, her smile disappearing. "I'm sorry; I don't think I know your name."

Rhuben's eyes widened and her eyebrows raised at the same time that Riley's eyes narrowed, both being done in offense. WayneWayne made a face, sucking in a quiet breath as Dak looked like he wanted to disappear right then and there.

_Talk about embarrassing. _WayneWayne through to himself as he made sure to look anywhere but at Dak's parents.

"No," Dak shook his head quickly. "It's WayneWayne, Riley, and Rhuben." Dak corrected her. "I've told you before." He paused. "Remember?"

"Right, right," Mrs. Zevon nodded. "Sorry. So busy with casting jobs, I have names all over the place, you know how it is." She tapped her husband on the arm. "Honey, we have to go, more interviews to go to, more people to see."

"Of course," Mr. Zevon replied. He opened the front door, pushing his wife outside before he followed her. "Don't wait up, we'll be back later. There's dinner for you and Lizzie in the fridge." The two left the house quickly.

"Sorry," Dak gave a nervous laugh as he turned back to his friends. "My parents aren't great with names." He commented.

"They're casting directors, Teen Icon," Riley blurted out a second after Dak finished his sentence. She stepped up to him and grabbed his face. "I've known you for four years and they've been calling me Raleigh, for _four years_!"

"At least they _think_ they know your name." Rhuben replied, crossing her arms over her chest.

Dak reached his hands up and placed them on Riley's cheeks, squishing them together so her lips puckered out, like she was doing to him. "Riley?" He asked, his voice muffled.

"What?" She replied.

"Let go of my face." Dak said.

"_You_ let go of _my _face." Riley countered.

"How about before you both claw each other's faces off, we just go watch TV or something," Rhuben commented, her hands shoved into the pockets of her jean jacket. Her eyes had returned back to its normal size, but she still seemed a bit perturbed about what had just happened. "Can you boofheads handle that?" She asked and Dak and Riley let go of each other's faces before moving their jaws back and forth to get some feeling back in their faces.

WayneWayne noticed and placed a hand on her shoulder, noticing that she stiffened for a quick second, but relaxed a second later. "In their defense, you guys do have some masculine sounding names. It's not easy to remember."

"Whatever," Rhuben mumbled as she pulled her shoulder away from his grasp and led the way to the den. "So…" she paused as she sat down in one of the chairs. "What did you invite us over here for? What are we doing?"

"I don't know," Dak shrugged and scratched his forehead. "To watch movies."

Riley gave him a suspicious look. "We just watched movies yesterday." She pointed out. She turned and looked at her sister, widening her eyes, and Rhuben lowered her eyebrows in reply before narrowing her eyes as well.

"We were also looking at Dak's fan-mail," WayneWayne jumped in, knowing that they were having one of their silent conversations. It was weird to watch, as they could have a very long conversation and understand each other just by their facial expressions. But when it came to them having a silent conversation and knowing it was about you, just made you feel very uncomfortable.

"Any cool gifts?" Rhuben asked. Dak moved aside to make room on the couch for her and she sat down on the far end as Riley opted to sit in an empty chair. "All we usually get are a bunch of cookies we can't eat and stuff for Ping-Pong."

"Nah, it's been pretty light this week," Dak commented as he motioned to the stack on the table. "I think most of it went to NYC," he leaned forward and picked one up. "This one was pretty interesting though." He said and tossed it to WayneWayne so he could read it and pass it around.

Dear Dak,  
I'm so in love you with, you, but you would never know it. You don't know I exist, but I know everything and anything I need to know about you. I'm that big a fan. I know your birthday, the time you were born, where you were born, your favorite color, your family members' names, your pets' names, and what you favorite subjects in school are. No one can say that I'm a bigger fan of you than I am. I love you so much and I wish that one day I could meet you. I think I'm going to one of your dates on tour, but as of now I'm not sure. I can't wait until the day we meet; it will make my dream a reality. Love you Dak!  
-Melissa

"I don't think I've ever seen anyone say the word love; so many times in a letter before." WayneWayne commented as he handed the letter over to Riley, who quickly read it, and then handed it to Rhuben. "Kind of weird."

"It's just a fan, there's nothing wrong with it." Rhuben commented with a shrug, crossing her legs as she tossed the letter onto the table. "No harm, no foul."

"So you're telling me that you have gotten letters like this before?" Dak asked as he waved the letter in the air, before re-reading it. WayneWayne smirked as he held his hand over his mouth, trying not to let it show. _Geez, I seriously never knew that jealousy was that easy to see._

"Probably 7 out of 10 letters that we get are like that," Rhuben replied with a nod. "Contrary to popular belief, they mostly go to Patrick and Noah though." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, her face void of any emotion. "No need to be jealous."

"Who said I was?" Dak shot back.

"You can see it in your body language, Dude," Riley replied, lying sideways in a chair. "Plus, it flashed over you face in a second."

"Wow," Dak laughed sarcastically as he leaned back. "Way to kick a man when he's down."

"You're not a man until your balls drop." Riley then turned and reached out her foot, lightly tapping WayneWayne's arm with it. "You're quieter than usual, what's up?" She sat up straighter. "Is it your sisters that are bothering you or is it something else?" Her face showed concern.

While Dak had a thing for Rhuben, WayneWayne found it very cliché to end up falling for her older twin sister. But it was something that he could help. Shortly after he had been humiliated by BTR as well as being known as 'the orange one' on the Ziggle Zaggles, Riley had bumped into him in the mall and immediately recognized him as the one that tried to push her friend out of the band. Being the kind of person that cared about other people's feelings before herself, even spreading herself too thin on that fault, she wasn't mad that he had tried so hard to get a job. She easily recognized, due to her intuition (a Jackson Curse), that he had just been desperate to get a job and went the wrong way about trying to get it. After talking to Dak about it, she went to her siblings and convinced him that he was a good guy, and then they went and convinced BTR that he wasn't as bad as they had originally thought. From that moment on, their friendship grew to the point that he had a hard time not thinking about her. Not the obsessive point that Dak did about Rhuben, but still enough. It also didn't help that the first time that she had met his family; they immediately jumped to the conclusion that she was his girlfriend. When he tried to tell them that it wasn't true, and it was obvious that they didn't believe him, she jumped in and said that they had been dating for a couple of weeks.

The tabloids had a field day with that one before the Jelena thing came around a second later, and everyone forgot about it (for the time being). Now every time a magazine was around his family, WayneWayne made absolute sure that none of them would speak to the press.

"Nothing," WayneWayne shrugged. "I was just thinking about stuff." He sat up suddenly and he made a face when Riley winced and turned her head away. "Sorry," he apologized quickly.

"Its fine," she replied with a sigh, running a hand through her hair.

_I still don't get how they can go through a case of abuse as badly as that and then act like nothing happened later. _WayneWayne thought to himself as he lightly shook his head, his hands clenching into fists. _It really makes me sick how he was able to do that to them for so long. I know they're getting a lot better now, but…it's not something that you can get over that fast._

"That reminds me," she added, lightly hitting herself on the forehead. "When are you going off to Denver? I think Big Time Rush has a couple of shows out there around the time that you are, so we could probably see them while we're out there." She whipped her phone out of her pocket and started to bring up the calendar.

"Uh, mid June to July 2nd, I believe," Dak replied as he rubbed his forehead. "I'm not really sure; I have to let my parents know as well." He raised his arms up over his face.

"You nervous?" Rhuben asked as she brought her knees up to her chest.

"I always am," Dak replied in monotone. "Only because of I've never worked with these people before." He removed his arms from his face, and looked straight ahead. "I don't know if we're going to mesh or whatever."

WayneWayne knew that that wasn't the truth, but he wasn't going to call him out on it. Especially if it wasn't something that he had told anyone else. He looked over at Rhuben and could immediately tell that she didn't believe him, but he wasn't going to say anything about that either.

"You'll do fine," Rhuben commented as she reached out and touched his shoulder. She quickly pulled her hand away, as if she had burnt herself. She tilted her head forward, as if making sure that her hair covered her face. "You always do." She lifted her head, her face expressionless at this point.

"Do you guys want a room?" Riley asked as she turned away from her phone. "'Cause I could leave if you need it." She turned back to her phone, looking confused about something as she sat up, resting her elbows on her knees. She looked up as WayneWayne stretched his arms over his head, his shirt riding up over his stomach. He lowered his arms and pulled it back down. "Aw, you ruined the view." She commented.

WayneWayne shot her a funny look as he crossed his arms over his chest. Dak laughed as he tilted his head back again. "Ladies and gentleman, Riley Jackson-McGuire, the shameless flirt."

Riley's mouth dropped open. "I'm _not_ a shameless flirt!"

"Almost every guy I have ever seen you look at, you've flirted with," Dak commented as he slowly nodded. "More so for the fact that you don't notice it when you do it, but you just do." He scratched the back of his neck. "I can't explain it, but trust me, you do."

"Do not," Riley pouted.

"There's no need to pout because you know you're wrong," Rhuben teased her sister. Riley looked like she wanted to say something, but she just stuck her lower lip out even further. "I'm hungry," she said, somewhat like an afterthought.

"I'll find something," Riley said as she got to her feet, tugging down the legs of her shorts as she did so. She had a troubled expression on her face as she walked out of the den and headed over to the larger kitchen. Dak noticed the look and got up, quickly following after her.

"What?" Dak asked as he grabbed onto the back of Riley's pigtails and held her still so she couldn't get away from him. "I see that look on your face," he added when Riley shrugged, looking away from him. "You don't have to worry." He commented.

"I can't help it," Riley replied a one-armed shrug. "You know I'm a worry-wart."

"I buy the wart part," Dak replied weakly. "Seriously," he put his arm around her shoulders and brought her into his side in a hug. "It's fine, it's just a letter. Just a fan." He then took the opportunity to mess up her hair, surprised when she didn't move to fix it.

"Yeah, but you're forgetting what fan stands for," Riley replied, looking at him seriously. "Fanatic."

* * *

**A/N: **If you didn't see my tweet on twitter, this story is mostly going to be from Dak's and WayneWayne's POVs although you'll see some of my characters' POVs as well. Either that or I'll go in a circle of Dak's, WayneWayne's, Riley's and Rhuben's POVs. Or I might make each chapter split between Dak's and WayneWayne's POVs, I haven't decided yet. Hm, also, Lizzie, Patrick, Noah, and Sydney are more like secondary characters to this story, although they're still very important. Also, if anyone is confused, I see WayneWayne are more of the quieter friend than some of the others of them.

Question for you guys though, and the outcome won't really defer from the story because it can both work: Would you rather see Della and Wiley get together sooner or later? Like I said before, with this story it can work both ways. Thanks!

Cheers,

-Riles


	3. Chapter 3: Father Knows Best

**Chapter 3**

_Father Knows Best_

* * *

"Hey," Rhuben walked into hers and Riley's shared room in Ronan's apartment, lightly pulling up her long pajama pants as she went. "I need your advice on something." She closed the door behind her before taking a flying leap onto her bed, grabbing her pillow and placing it in her lap.

"If it has to do with Dak, then yes go out with him, so he can stop begging you for four more years." Riley replied without looking up from her laptop. "Trust me, I'm tired of being asked over and over again how he can get your attention and what he can do for you to finally say 'yes' to him." She closed her laptop and then set it aside. She noticed Rhuben looked at her as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Or did you want my completely serious answer?"

"Yeah, that one." Rhuben said pointedly. She let out a sigh as she brought her hair behind her head in a loose ponytail. "I don't know," she rested her chin in her hands. "It's obvious that he likes me," Riley nodded. "And…I guess I like him too," she practically mumbled. "But I don't want everyone to get up in my business about it."

"You mean like they did with Tristan and Matt?" Riley asked and then nodded. "I can understand that, they nearly had a field day when they didn't know that Nathan was Brittany's little brother and not a boyfriend that we were both seeing."

"You have to admit, that was kind of funny." Rhuben commented with a half smile. Her smile faded. "Anyway, like I said, apart from our family since we're a bunch of nosy people as it is, I don't like my private business being analyzed to death. But I also don't like how other celebrities pretend like they're not dating when they are, it's like they lie to their fans."

Riley stayed silent for a few moments, absentmindedly looking at the ceiling as she thought about what to say. "I could say just ignore it, like I usually, or try to laugh at it. But then people would probably think that you're abusing Dak's feelings for your fame." Riley murmured as she cracked her knuckles. "Personally, I think you should just go for it, and it's not like I'm saying you're going to marry the guy, since we don't know what's going to happen in the future. But try to go out on at least one date with him to see how it goes. If you can stay friends for four years before going out on one date, if it goes badly, you can still go back to being friends with no problem." She noticed Rhuben's hesitation s she continued to run her hand through her hair. "But that's just what I think, you could ask Ronan for his opinion, he knows what he's talking about when it comes to things like this. Especially since we're always so afraid of being hurt again." She added bitterly.

"Speaking of which, what about you and WayneWayne?" Rhuben asked. She laughed as Riley made a face and a noise of annoyance.

"I've been waiting for him to ask me out, but I think I might do it myself if he doesn't ask me in the next couple of days." Riley said through gritted teeth. "I am _so_ freaking tired of waiting for it."

"And yet we all know you'll turn into a nervous babbling mess when you try to actually do it." Rhuben commented to which Riley nodded slowly. "Since you always act all confident about everything, but everything always gets to you in the worst way." She gave her sister a teasing smile. "Who knew that you could be so sensitive?"

"Shut up." Riley said and threw her pillow at her twin sister. "Anyway, since you still seem so confused about this whole thing, I, once again, suggest that you try to talk to Ronan. It might help." She grabbed her laptop and opened it again as Rhuben turned and jumped off of her bed, her feet hitting the floor with a dull thud, and left the room.

She walked over to Ronan's bedroom, passing Noah and Sydney, who were pointing at something on Sydney's computer and Patrick, who was lying on the couch, looking extremely bored about whatever they were talking about. "Ronan?" Rhuben knocked on her adoptive father's door and poked her head in as she slowly opened it. He looked up from a pile of papers that was sitting on his lap and gave her a bright smile. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure," Ronan set the papers aside and patted the bed next to him, motioning for her to sit next to him. Rhuben crossed the room and pulled herself up onto his bed, crossing her legs as she got comfortable. "What's up?"

"Well," Rhuben paused as she pulled her hair behind her ears. "We can talk about anything, right?" she dropped her hands to her lap.

Ronan gave her a look. "Considering that you had to come to me when you first got your period-"

"Yeah, I was hoping that we would _never_ bring that up again," Rhuben commented as she rubbed the back of her neck. She grabbed onto her feet and started to rock back and forth a little bit. "Uh, I was wondering what to do…about dating." She made a quick face as she finished her sentence, lowering her voice on the last few words. "You know, since that's all that the media here cares about, but back in Oz, the paparazzi is just nuts."

Ronan nodded slowly, seeming to get what she was talking about. He rested his head back against the pillows that were behind him. "Does this have to do with Dak?"

Rhuben rolled her eyes. "When does it not?" she asked sarcastically.

Ronan rubbed his chin for a second before turning back to his second daughter. "Could you get the others in here, please? I want all of you to hear this." Rhuben nodded and slid off of the bed before slipping out of the room. She came back a few seconds later with her four siblings following her. Ronan didn't speak until they had all piled onto his bed and he was sure that he had their complete attention. "Ok, I know that you are really worried about your public lives being out in magazines like _PopTiger_ and _Universe_ and everything," he turned and gave Riley a pointed look as she stared back at him. "And even if you act like you don't care, I know you do." Riley lowered her head as she twirled her finger around one of her pigtails. "I also know that your main fear about it is the fact that your abuse might get out into the public, especially after how hard we made sure that it wouldn't get out there, but you have to think of it this way; you're in the public eye and the world cares about what you do. They care what you think and, as it stands, they care who you date. I know it sucks, I've had the same problem when all of my success came out as being one of the younger and more successful music producers in Hollywood." He reached out and shook Sydney's foot. "Especially after I nabbed you guys. But now that you're older and that you're getting _really_ good with dealing with your past abuse, you have to think about your own feelings as well as other peoples' feelings."

He turned to Rhuben. "I don't mean to put you on the spot here, but how long do you think that Dak will stick around, even as your friend, if you keep letting your fear get in the way of your happiness?" He then turned back and addressed all of them. "And I know that you really care about your private life getting out in magazines, but that's the break, until something bigger comes along, they're going to be going after someone. The only thing that keeps it going is if you continue to try and fix things on your own, if you keep talking about it when you're asked, I find that ignoring it works better. And if it can't be ignored, segway the question into another topic so the interviewer or whomever, forgets it. As for the potential pictures, PopTiger is usually good about dropping something when asked. You know what the truth and what's not the truth, and as clichéd as it sounds, you shouldn't let it get to you guys." He gave a wry smile. "To be perfectly honest, you all act like you don't care what people think, but I can tell that you care way too much for your own good." He licked his lips. "When it all comes down to it, you have to think about what's more important; your public image? Or your own happiness?"

Sydney let out a short sigh. "But, what if they _do_ find out about our abuse?" He shook his head, his fringe flying. "I mean, I know that we're going to announce it eventually, so we can help all of our fans, or just people who are having the problem, but what if it gets out before we can?"

"Then we'll deal with it, just like we've dealt with everything else," Ronan said with a determined nod. "Your friends will back you up like they always have; I'll be here to help you out, no doubt about that. And it'll probably help you get over it even faster, even though I know you're never going to forget it."

"But…Robert was sent to jail almost two years ago now," Patrick pointed out, lightly pulling at his bottom lip. "What if people wonder why we waited so long to say anything about it?"

"There's such thing as a time for closure," Ronan reminded him gently. He then gave a big smile to dispel some of the tension that was in the room. "So, anything else that you want to talk about?"

"Yes," Riley nodded once. "You just said that you've had this problem before, people wanting to know about your love life, when you were younger and just getting started." She rested her chin in her hands, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "Who was this girl and how come we never met her?"

Ronan blinked once, suddenly looking like he wished that he didn't say anything about it at all. He then gave a wistful smile as he placed his arms behind his head, tilting his head back when he thought about it. "I was about…I think, 25 then, since I think I've known you guys for almost ten years now." He said quietly to himself. Patrick started to open his mouth to correct him, but Ronan quickly broke in. "If you're going to be a smart ass, I suggest you don't even try it."

Noah laughed to himself as Patrick shrugged and moved so he was lying down on his stomach, listening attentively. Noah then turned around so his head was resting on Patrick's lower back, bringing his feet up. "We're listening, Ronan, go ahead."

"Alright, so," Ronan rubbed his hands together. "I had been with her for about two years at that time, and I knew that she was thinking about getting married, since she kept talking about it all the time. And the magazines caught wind of it and started to obsess over whether or not I was going to get married. At that point, I was dating someone who wasn't in the music industry, she was someone I knew from home, and she was starting to bask in the limelight as well as continue to push the thought of marriage on me."

"Wow, what a gold digger," Riley commented.

Ronan turned and looked at her. "Do you _ever_ think before you talk?"

"No," Rhuben, Patrick, Noah, and Sydney replied as they shook their heads.

"Well, that explains a lot," Ronan commented. "Anyway, after month of her dropping hints about wanting to get married, and me, not being ready for it, I tried to sit down and talk to her about it. But she "loved me" so much that she said that she would wait as long as I wanted to. Another year went by and I realized that I still didn't want to be married, and that I didn't have the same feelings for her that I used to. When I tried to tell her that, she screamed at me, ranted, raved, threw a vase at my head, and broke up with me right then and there."

"What does this have to do with the magazines?" Rhuben asked as she tilted her head to the side.

"I'm getting there," Ronan replied. "When the magazines caught wind of our break-up, she went to each and every one and started to spread lies about me. For a while, I worried a lot about it, but then I realized that it was causing me more stress than I needed and started to ignore it. Things got better after that and I was happier."

"Ok, that still doesn't answer the question of why we didn't meet her," Sydney commented, waving his hand in the air. He purposefully widened his eyes. "Were you ashamed of us?"

"You weren't my kids yet, how could I be ashamed?" Ronan replied. "And please don't do that thing with your eyes. There were two reasons for me not letting you meet her," he held up his fingers in the peace sign. "One; do you really think that I was stupid enough to bring her around your dad? And two; because I was almost positive at that point that she would try to latch onto your steady fame and want to try and act like your family member or something. Basically the magazines helped me figure out what kind of a person she really was." He rolled his eyes. "But the tabloids, like the _National Inquirer _said that at that point we were married, had three kids, and two cats."

"Was that before or after Bigfoot married that rich chick?" Patrick asked sarcastically.

"Nice one," Ronan stated and held up his hand for a high-five, which Patrick gladly gave him as his siblings laughed. "So basically, what I'm saying is that if you allow the magazines to ruin your happiness, I'm going to kick your butts."

"I still can't believe you went out with a gold digger." Riley commented as she slowly shook her head at Ronan. "I mean, couldn't you tell in the first couple of days? It's usually an easy thing to see."

"Rilandon Sydney!" Ronan stated firmly, although his lips were twitching into a smile.

"Ronan-"She paused and looked confused before turning to Rhuben. "Does he have a middle name?"

"I don't know, does he?" She turned to Patrick, Noah, and Sydney. "Does Ronan have a middle name?" When they shrugged, she turned back to Ronan. "Do you have a middle name?"

Ronan blinked. "You've known me for this long and you don't know my middle name?" He asked as he raised his eyebrows. "Gee thanks, I know that you guys are my friends."

"Peter?" Patrick guessed. "I think his middle name would be Peter."

"No," Noah shook his head as he picked at his fingernails. "That sounds a little too stuffy and not much like Ronan." He then made a face. "Well, actually, his mother could give him that middle name just to mess with him."

"My mom isn't _that_ bad." Ronan defended her.

"Ha, that's what _you_ think." Noah replied with a warm smile. "No, I think that his middle name could be…Andrew."

"Ha," Sydney's dimples appeared in his cheeks. "Then his initials would spell RAM that would be funny." He kicked his legs back and forth. "It would explain why he's always butting heads with Gustavo." He added with a shrug.

"Out," Ronan said as he pointed towards the door. "Get out, out of my room. I've had enough crazy for one night, I don't need any more." He waited until the five of them got off his bed and left the room before grabbing a sheet of paper and writing a note on it. "Note to self: never let them find out my middle name."

* * *

**A/N: **I wanted to show some characterization with Ronan and why he doesn't date much, as well as some characterization between Riley and Rhuben. Chapters like these will probably come up through the story sporadically. I hope you guys liked it, I'll update soon.

Cheers,

-Riles


	4. Chapter 4: Mama Drama

**Chapter Four**

_Mama Drama_

* * *

"Hey guys, I need you to get the dishes done before I get back," Ronan stated as he walked through the apartment, gathering numerous notepads and papers before shoving them into a briefcase. He looked up when he heard the groans coming from his kids and rolled his eyes. "Hey, I'm sorry that the guys are on their summer tour and that you don't really have much to do while you're on a break from your own music, but doing _some_ chores isn't going to kill you."

"That's what _you_ think." Patrick commented from where he was watching the TV, his mouth hanging open. He only looked away when it turned to a commercial. "I mean, what if I'm mopping, and slip in a puddle of water, fall into the handle of the mop, and impale myself in the chest?"

"Then you can clean up the blood with the mop." Ronan cracked in reply.

He laughed to himself, but let out a sigh as he looked around the apartment. Due to the fact that it was so big, others would call it a penthouse, there was a lot of space for all of them. But, that caused the messes that they created to spread pretty quickly and to get in people's way if it wasn't cleaned up quickly. While he is laid back on a lot of things, the one thing that Ronan couldn't stand for too long was a big mess.

"Please, just clean this place up before I get back and we can go to Cheeseburger in Paradise for dinner tonight," Ronan said as he looked at his watch. "I have a run of meetings today, so I probably won't get back until 5."

"If we have that long, then we'll definitely have the mess cleaned up by then." Sydney commented with a bright smile. Ronan turned and gave him a hard stare and Sydney slowly leaned back, his eyes widened as he did so. "What?" he asked slowly. He let out a huff and held up his hands. "I _promise_ I won't just sweep the dirt onto the carpet like I did last time."

"Good," Ronan replied and picked up his suitcase. "I'll see you later." He paused as he turned back around to face his daughters. "In case you guys want to go somewhere, you can take the van, as long as I can use one of your cars." He added.

"Take mine, its fine," Riley replied with a wave of her hand. "See you later, Ronan." She stood up as the door closed and turned to face her siblings. "So I'm thinking if we get these done as fast as possible we can get some time to do whatever we want before he gets back." She paused. "Which means that we'll also have to clean up the mess we'll potentially make from that, but I think it'll be worth it."

"Same chores as usual?" Rhuben asked her sister as she turned off the TV. When Riley nodded she turned and grinned at Patrick. "That means that you're helping me fold and put away the laundry." She laughed evilly, rubbing her hands together as Patrick let out a groan and tilted his head back as he obediently followed his older sister out of the living room and towards the laundry room.

"And Syd does sweeping so that means that you and I put up the dishes, Riles," Noah commented, ruffling Sydney's hair as he moved by them. He followed Riley into the kitchen and opened the dishwasher, glancing at the clean dishes that were in there. He tilted his head to the side as he gazed at the silverware. "We'll just trick Patrick into putting up the silverware as well." He said.

"Good idea," Riley agreed, taking her phone out of her pocket and placing it on the counter beside her. She glanced at the screen for a second before reaching up and opening the cabinet to take the dishes from Noah to put away, letting out a little huff.

Noah noticed and glanced at his eldest sister, studying her for a moment before speaking up. "You know, with you waiting for WayneWayne to ask you out, it made me realize that you always act different whenever you're in a new relationship."

"No two relationships are the same, No," Riley pointed out.

"No, I get that, but this is one of the few," Noah scratched the side of his head. "Well, potential, I guess, relationships that you act happy. In one you were very shy, in another you were kind of possessive, and in another-"

"What's your point?" Riley asked as she grabbed a stack of plates from his hand, blinking as he held onto them, making sure that he had her attention.

Noah smiled at her. "I'm just saying that if you do go out with WayneWayne, that I think that you'll be happy and I want you to be happy." He let go of the stack of plates and bent down to grab another set as Riley put them up. "And to have the chance to potentially kick his ass if and/or when he decides to break up with you." He added with a toothy smile.

Riley laughed and brought Noah into her side for a hug, giving him a noogie as well. "Remind me to make sure that I never forget that underneath that calm exterior there's a very evil person waiting to strike." She said and then gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks, Bro."

"No problem, sis." Noah replied. He nodded over towards her phone as it buzzed on the counter. "That might be what you've been waiting for." He said, laughing quietly to himself as Riley grabbed the phone and picked it up. She read the text that she had received and turned to Noah with her eyebrows raised. "What?" he asked when he noticed her looking at him.

* * *

"I still don't get why they want to meet all of us," Sydney commented as he buckled up his seat belt, sitting in the very back of their black mini-van. "Now, I mean. Why wouldn't the Dooley's want to meet us sooner?"

"Who knows," Riley replied with a shrug as she started the van. "But for this one, I would rather it be later than sooner, but don't say I didn't warn you that they're a bunch of psychos." She commented as she peeled out of the parking space and turned onto the highway.

"You mean even more so than us?" Patrick asked. He looked impressed as Riley nodded silently. "Wow, I didn't think that was possible." He said, nudging Noah on the arm, causing him to smile back.

"Hey," Rhuben said to Riley quietly from the passenger seat. "D'you mind stopping at Dak's on the way?" she asked. She sighed and slouched a little bit in her seat as Riley shook her head, letting her know that it was ok. "Nothing's wrong, really." She commented after a second. "I just feel that the last time that we were there something was up, and I wanted to talk to him about it." She looked at Riley out of the corner of her eye as Riley gave her an odd look. "I could feel you thinking it." She commented as if to answer her unasked question.

"You know, I should be used to it, but sometimes this silent communication thing is really creepy." Riley commented.

"You're telling me." Rhuben remarked.

Riley reached forward and turned on the radio, smiling as the song _Dynamite _by Tao Cruz came through the speakers. She turned it up and the five of them sang, loudly, to the song as she drove to the Zevons' house. They got so into the song that every time they would pass another car or at a red light, the people on either side of their building would stop and stare at them as if they were crazy. But that just caused them to sing even louder. They didn't get a lot of time off, and when they did, they used it the best that they could, which meant that they also had a tendency to act a bit more rambunctious than usual. Although it they were asked about it, they would just say that they got before easily. Which was also true.

Riley pulled into the Zevons' driveway, and parked the car, waiting as Rhuben got out and strode up to the front door. Rhuben raised a hand and knocked on the door, only having to wait a few seconds before Lizzie opened the door, smiling with pleasant surprise as she spotted her friend.

"Hey Rhu," she greeted before giving her a quick hug. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to talk to Dak for a minute," Rhuben replied as she stuck her hands into her shorts pockets, suddenly not sure what to with them. "I thought he was acting weird when we were over a couple of days ago and I just wanted to be sure that everything was ok."

"He's just up in his room, come on in," Lizzie took a step back and allowed the raven-haired girl to enter the house. Lizzie closed the door behind her before calling up the stairs to Dak. She turned back to Rhuben, now looking serious. "He's been acting really grumpy lately; I think it's been a couple of weeks now, although he's good at hiding it around you guys. I think he's still really upset that Mom and Dad are hardly around and that they don't really pay much attention." She shrugged carelessly. "It bothers me sometimes, but I know that they love us and that they're working hard just for us to keep having the life that we have now, and to support us. It sucks sometimes, but Dak takes care of me and we have a really good time together." Lizzie's serious look deepened as Rhuben looked hard at her, not saying a word. "What?" Lizzie's eyes then widened. "He didn't tell you?"

"Didn't tell her what?" Dak asked as he bounded down the stairs. He paused when he felt the tension in the foyer and turned a hard stare to his sister. "Tell her what?" he repeated the question.

"Nothing," Lizzie replied as she shook her head, her blonde hair hitting her in the face.

"Tell her _what_, Lizzie?" Dak pressed.

"I told you-"

"Elizabeth Zevon, what did you just tell her?" Dak demanded.

"You're not dad, Dak!" Lizzie snapped back as she shook her head. "You can't tell me what to do!" She paused and looked at Rhuben out of the corner of her eye before turning back to Dak. "That's what I told her! I told her about Mom and Dad!" Dak closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the banister. "It's not my fault," her shoulders slumped. "I thought that you already told them, it just slipped out."

"Its fine, Lizzie," Dak commented as he raised his head, looking partially nervous and partially relieved. He turned his attention to Rhuben. "Aren't you going to say anything?" he asked after a second.

"I have a question, actually," Rhuben replied slowly. "Is that why, every few weeks or so, you're really adamant about not going to your house?" She asked. "Because your parents aren't around?"

"Yep," Dak nodded once. "They're not around much, and I get kind of embarrassed about it, since so many people expect me to have such a perfect life and my parents suck." He gave a bitter laugh. "I try not to think about it, so I try to keep as busy as possible."

"Which also explains why you like to come over to Ronan's apartment so much." Rhuben added, suddenly getting it.

"Partially." Lizzie commented.

Both teens ignored her. Dak suddenly looked serious as he raised a hand and pointed at Rhuben. "You can't tell anyone," he said. "WayneWayne knows, but that's it. You can't tell anyone else." He paused. "Well, I know you'll tell Riles, but Ronan can't know. Neither can your brothers, or Mrs. Knight, or Gustavo, Kelly, the guys, the girls, anyone that you know. No one can know about it."

"Promise," Rhuben shrugged once more. "But I can't guarantee you about Syd; I think he has a suspicion about it."

"Probably the only time that I have how smart he is."

"Try living with him."

Lizzie looked back and forth between the two of them as there was a silence that filled the foyer. But it wasn't an awkward silence or an uncomfortable one in the slightest. "So, in light of what you've just found out…" Dak spoke up again, nervously rubbing his hand over the back of his head and his neck. He flashed a smile. "Would this be a really bad time to ask you out?" He asked. "It's fine if you say 'no'-" he started to say, like every other time that he had asked her out.

Rhuben interrupted him this time. "Sure," she blushed lightly as she looked at her feet. "I'd like to go out with you."

"Oh, you're going to love it," Lizzie sprang forward and grabbed onto Rhuben's hands in hers, lightly swinging them back and forth. "Dak told me about it already. He even said that he's found a way to make sure that on magazines hear about it and report on it." She beamed at her brother before turning back to Rhuben. "It's brilliant even if I do say so myself." She raised her hand to the side of her mouth. "Since it was my idea in the first place."

"Lizzie, shut up." Dak commented as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"What are we doing…then?" Rhuben asked, her voice lowered to a shy tone. "You know that I hate surprises." She reminded him.

"Trust me, Bells, you'll love this surprise," Dak commented. "Trust me." He looked down and pulled his phone out of his pocket as it started to ring. He quickly looked at the face of the screen. "Oh, it's my agent, I have to take this," he looked up and walked over to Rhuben to give her a hug. He stopped when he noticed her looking at him curiously. "What?"

"You called me Bells," she replied.

"So?" Dak asked slowly, not sure if he was going to get hit or not.

"So nothing," Rhuben shrugged. "I like it." She replied. "It's nice.

Dak smiled and gave her a warm hug. "I'll call you later with the details and everything." He gave her a warm hug, only pulling back slightly when he finished. "Bye." He smiled down at her.

"Bye," Rhuben replied with a shy smile as she pulled some of her hair behind her ears. Dak looked down as his phone rang again and took a step back as he answered it, disappearing around the corner of the kitchen and out of sight. Rhuben turned back to Lizzie and blinked a little bit when she saw her giving the raven haired girl a really wide smile. "Do you _always _smile like that? Or have I not noticed?" Rhuben asked with a teasing smile as she pushed Lizzie's blonde hair out of her face.

"I just like the idea of you and my brother together," Lizzie replied as she walked her friend to the front door of the house. "I've been waiting for it for forever." She added, hanging back off to the side as Rhuben moved to grab the doorknob to leave. "Something wrong?" Lizzie asked, noticing Rhuben's hesitation as she reached for the doorknob. Rhuben turned to face the younger girl, slowly shaking her head.

"I just had the strange feeling that I was being watched." She murmured in reply.

"Oh," Lizzie gave a warm smile. "Don't worry about that, we have some really nosy neighbors. They're always snooping around our stuff, so we get that feeling a lot." She reached out and patted Rhuben on the arm. "Don't worry too much about it." She gave a bright smile, waved, and bid Rhuben goodbye, closing the front door behind her.

_Yeah, like I believe that. _Rhuben thought to herself as she looked at the houses next to the Zevons' and then to the ones across from her, noticing that there was no one outside. Still, she couldn't shake off the feeling and couldn't help but let a shiver run up her spine. It was a familiar feeling, back when they had gotten the news that their father could get put on parole for good behavior, she and her siblings were on edge and feeling like they were being stalked for months. But that was a while ago, and things had calmed down on that front.

So what could it be?

"Tell you later?" Riley guessed as Rhuben got into the passenger seat of the van and slammed the door shut before buckling up.

"Yep," Rhuben replied with a short nod.

"I thought so."

* * *

"Hey," WayneWayne smiled at his friends as he opened the door to his house. He gave Riley and Rhuben a hug before high-fiving Patrick, Noah, and Sydney, taking a step back to let them into the house. "Thanks for coming by, my family have been really eager to meet you guys."

"I bet," Patrick said as he crossed his arms over his chest. He looked at WayneWayne curiously. "Are they really as crazy as you say, or are you just exaggerating?"

"I'm not exaggerating," WayneWayne lowered his voice, closing the door behind them. "Try not to take any offense to what they say, and don't' make any sudden movements. Also, they can smell and will pounce on your fear." He added with a serious look that slowly melted into a smile. "I'm kidding." He said after a second. "But, like I've said before, I'm apologizing in advance for all of the questions that are going to be thrown your way as well as the fact that they're probably going to get really up in your face."

"Then I don't think it's a good thing to have Syd here," Rhuben said slowly as she put her arm around Sydney's shoulders. "You know about his…" she trailed off as WayneWayne nodded.

Due to their PTSD from their abuse, the Jacksons each reacted to meeting new people in different ways. For Sydney, being the youngest and having experienced it at such an early age, he had a habit of, when put under a lot of stress or fear, he would mentally revert back to the mind of a five year old. He would act like a typical five year old, and could potentially have some temper tantrums. Having witnessed one before they had told WayneWayne that they were being abused, as well as seeing a few after their father was sent to jail almost two years ago, he was used to it and could help out whenever his help was needed. But it was still a good idea to warn people about it.

"I know," WayneWayne nodded and scanned his friends' faces. "And I'll do my best to make sure that it doesn't get that far." He turned on his heel. "C'mon, they're waiting in the living room."

"How fitting," Riley murmured under her breath as she rolled her eyes sarcastically. _Of course they would be waiting for them the same way they met me. Seems kind of symbolic if you ask me. _

"Mom, Dad, Jaycee, Natalie, Sam, I want you to meet my friends." WayneWayne said as he led them into the living room. He could feel his heart beat starting to speed up as all eyes turned to him and his friends. _Relax, WayneWayne_. _Things'll be fine. _"You already know Riley-"he pointed to her.

"Hey Girlfriend," Natalie greeted with a bright smile. "I was wondering when we'd see you over here again."

WayneWayne ignored her. "And this is her sister Rhuben, and Patrick and Noah, and that's Sydney," he pointed to them in order and then turned to his friends. "And that my Mom and Dad, Jaycee, Natalie, and Jaycee's husband, Sam."

"Hi," Sydney greeted shyly with a small wave.

"So," Natalie got to her feet and walked over to Rhuben. "You're the one that's dating Wally's best friend!" She reached out and shook Rhuben's hand hard. "I think it's cute that you two are dating a set of best friends, how long have you two been going out?"

"Actually, we haven't-"Rhuben didn't get a chance to finish as Jaycee pushed Natalie aside.

"So, tell me about Wally and his girlfriend." Jaycee stated as she placed her hands lightly on her protruding belly. "How are they together?" She looked over at her brother, who looked the epitome of embarrassed. "I don't see them holding hands much and they've been together for six months now."

"She doesn't like PDA," WayneWayne jumped in quickly.

He ran his hands over his face. After telling Dak about what happened the first time Riley had met his family, he quickly agreed to keeping up the charade if he was ever asked about it. Then Riley had gone and explained everything to her siblings. They were quick to jump in on the charade. Since they all had the uncanny sense to want to help their friends when they were in a jam with no thought to themselves, they didn't even have to think about it when WayneWayne asked if they were sure about helping him. The way he saw it, if they didn't believe him, no matter how hard he tried to tell them that they weren't dating, why should he even bother trying anymore?

"That's too bad," Jaycee turned to Rhuben and looked her up and down. "Do _you _like PDA? I've seen you and Dak in the magazines a lot and-"

"Please," Sam pushed his wife back a little bit. "Give them some space, I'm sure they don't like to have all of these questions thrown their way like this." He said in a friendly tone.

"Thanks," Noah said quietly, with a respectful nod.

"What did he say?" Mrs. Dooley spoke up. Instead of the welcoming tone that she gave Riley when she first met her, her eyes were narrowed and she looked like she had swallowed a lemon. "I couldn't hear him." She turned to Noah. "Speak up, what did you say?"

Patrick quickly jumped in as Noah clammed up, looking at his feet. "He said 'thank you'." He reiterated, lightly placing a hand on Noah's back, to comfort him.

"You're welcome," Mr. Dooley replied. He still had the same welcoming demeanor that he had when he first met Riley months ago. "It's so good to meet all of Wally's friends, we've heard a lot about you guys and we've wanted to meet you for a while."

"It's nice to meet you guys, too." Rhuben replied with a nod.

"And how old are you?" Mrs. Dooley asked as she turned to Sydney, giving him a critical look up and down. Sydney gulped as he moved closer to Rhuben's side.

"I'm 11," he replied, his voice shaking slightly.

"Then aren't you a little too _old_ to be clinging onto your sister like that?" Mrs. Dooley asked. She widened her eyes innocently when her husband turned and gave her a disapproving look. "What? I was just asking a question."

"Yes, I'm _sure_ that's what you were doing," Rhuben said slowly, her eyes narrowing. She looked over at Riley, who looked like she was doing everything she could not to say what she was thinking.

"So, Girlfriend," Natalie turned back to Riley, who now seemed increasingly annoyed at not being called by her name. "How come you don't like PDA? Is Wally a bad kisser or something?"

"Natalie!" WayneWayne snapped. "Knock it off."

"She's your girlfriend, part of the family; I should be able to ask these questions." Natalie gave a flippant wave of her hand. "So, is he a good kisser? Yes or No? I've heard that we Dooley's are good kissers." She reached out and elbowed Sam in the side. "Isn't that right?"

Sydney turned and started to tug on the bottom of Rhuben's shirt frantically. "Rhu-Rhu, I want to go," he whispered out of the side of his mouth. "_Now_, please. These people scare me."

"You're not the only one," Noah muttered out of the side of his mouth.

"Oh come on," Jaycee clasped her hands together. "We have to see them kiss, to see if Dooley's really are good kissers." She patted WayneWayne's shoulder. "Don't be embarrassed, we won't take pictures of this one, but we will for the next one."

"How am I related to you all?" WayneWayne asked as he shook his head.

Patrick looked at his siblings and slightly opened his mouth. There was the sound of a phone beeping and he quickly whipped his phone from his pocket. "Oh look, Ronan sent us a text saying we have to get home," he gave a nervous laugh as he took a giant step backwards. "Apparently we didn't clean as well as he wanted and we have to go. Now. Bye." He turned and practically sprinted towards the door.

"Walk them out," Mr. Dooley said, gently pushing WayneWayne forward.

WayneWayne gave his family an odd look as he slowly turned and followed them to the door. _Ok, that was even weirder than usual. I need to move out before I find out if it's contagious. _He walked out onto the porch, surprised that he almost bumped into Riley. "Sorry about that, I didn't think they would be worse the second time around." He apologized quickly.

"Your mom doesn't like us," Riley said as soon as WayneWayne had cracked the door behind them. She waved her siblings off to the car as he turned to give her an incredulous look. "Don't look at me like that," she said calmly. "I know when parents don't like us, most don't, and I know that your mom just sees the dark hair, the makeup, the piercings, and maybe some of our tattoos, and she writes us off." She raised a finger to her forehead. "I think she was fine with it at first, because it was just me around, but seeing all of us together, I know she thinks that we're trouble or something."

"You're crazy," WayneWayne replied, although he wasn't denying it completely. He noticed the difference in her demeanor pretty quickly, but didn't want to call her out on it with all of them there. Plus, there was the _tiny _chance that they were wrong. "My mom likes you guys just fine, she's just having a hard day." He ran a hand through her hair. "But thanks for still going along with the story, I don't think that they'll ever-"

"Oh will you just ask me out, already?" Riley snapped. WayneWayne's eyebrows rose quickly and Riley blinked, looking away. She raised a hand to her mouth and took a tiny step back before lowering her hand, sucking her lips into her mouth. "Did I just say that out loud?" she asked meekly.

"Well," WayneWayne raised his index finger to his ear and stuck it inside, wiggling it around. "You kind of _yelled_ it, actually. And," he shrugged. "Subject change, much?"

"Oh," Riley nodded once. "Ok," she still refused to look at WayneWayne. "Please excuse me while I go and drown myself in the bathroom." She said as a blush rose up her cheeks and she stepped around WayneWayne, getting ready to move away as fast as possible.

WayneWayne reached out and grabbed onto her elbow before she could get away. "Seriously, why is it that every time a girl does something embarrassing the first thing that she wants to do is run away?" He asked as he pulled her back in front of her.

"Because it's easier than to sit there and bask in the glow that is our embarrassment," Riley replied sarcastically.

WayneWayne chuckled as she placed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. He rocked back and forth on his heels. "If it helps at all, although I'm not sure it would," he added as a quick afterthought. "It helped make me les nervous to…ask you out, maybe?" He asked, his voice rising a bit at the end.

"Considering the fact that I just yelled in your face for it," Riley mumbled as she looked down at her feet, twisting her right foot back and forth across the floor. "I didn't think that you would have to ask." She lifted her head, her cheeks still burning red. "Um, when were you…uh…thinking of going…out?"

"Do you need an answer now?" WayneWayne asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

"For the sake of my sanity, that would be great." Riley replied with a nod. Her eyes narrowed slightly when WayneWayne slowly smiled at her. "What?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"I could have just misheard you, but I think that you _may_ have just said that you've been going insane over me." WayneWayne replied.

"Wha?" Riley's eye twitched for a second as she thought about it. "But..I…you…ugh," she shook her head. "Shut up!" She snapped and WayneWayne laughed again. "I'll see you later," She gave a short wave over her shoulder before walking down the porch and heading over to the van.

* * *

**A/N: **There's a bit more Wiley in this because someone asked for it, in case anyone was wondering and I wanted to show a Riley and Noah relationship moment since we don't see it a lot. There might be a bit more Wiley in the next chapter. Alright, so Dak and WayneWayne finally asked the girls out. But are you going to see their first dates…..No. Now, I know that you guys are probably gonna rant and rave and scream your heads off, wondering why you won't see it, and it's simple. It will be better as a one-shot/deleted scene, that way I can make them as long as I want, and not worry about keeping the pacing of the story. That being said, these first four chapters set up the story and now it's gonna move faster.

Also, I still don't know how long this story is going to be, I still only know it's gonna be between 20-40 chapters, but it's not gonna end soon, since it's still only the beginning. Sorry this chapter was kind of short. Also, you might think that Rhuben (and Riley sort of) finding out about Dak's family may have come too soon/too fast, but trust me, it's needed for the way the rest of the story is gonna go.

What did you think? I accidentally spelled WayneWayne's sister's name wrong in this fic. First I called her Jacey, and then I called her Jaycee. From now on, it'll be Jaycee, just in case anyone's confused.

An update to Elevate is coming soon, as well as a new story, and maybe a new Kiley centered fic.

Cheers,

-Riles


	5. Chapter 5: Suspicion At Its Best

**Chapter Five**

_Suspicion at Its Best_

* * *

WayneWayne looked up as Jaycee walked into his room, carrying a large bag in her arms. He quickly put his book down and walked over to her, grabbing the bag before walking it back over to his desk and setting it down onto the ground. Jaycee gave him a short glare as she rested one hand on her stomach and the other on the doorframe.

"You could have helped me sooner you know," Jaycee said sharply. "One slip and I could have fallen down the stairs."

"You're being overly dramatic as usual, the lobby isn't that far from the room" WayneWayne commented as he kicked his feet back up onto his desk, picking up his book. "If you did ask me for help earlier, I didn't hear you because I was on the phone with Camille."

"How is she, anyway?" Jaycee asked, now resting both of her hands on her stomach. She walked across the room and sat down on the bed, carefully moving so she was lying down on the bed. "I haven't heard you guys talk in a while."

WayneWayne shrugged. "She's been busy with her work," he rolled his eyes. "And her new boyfriend," he added. "You know, I knew that she got crazy possessive of the guys that she liked, but I never knew that she actually spent _all her time_ with her boyfriend once she got one." He said as he shook his head. He turned and looked at Jaycee." She went with him on tour," he added as an explanation.

"Oh," Jaycee nodded. "Well, I don't see how it's bad that she wants to support him," she said with a nod. "But I _do _see how if she does get possessive over a guy how that can seem kind of odd and maybe a bit worrying…considering she's your best friend and everything." She paused. "That's a girl, anyway."

"If you're insinuating that I'm jealous of my best friend and her boyfriend, then you're nuts," WayneWayne replied, shaking his head. "Besides, I'm having a good time hanging out with Dak and the Jacksons anyway." He let out a sigh. "It's not like the others like me much anyway, I'm almost positive that Kendall still thinks that I'm going to try and push him out of the band again, when I'm not. I could really care less about their band."

"Oh, so _that's_ what this is about," Jaycee said as she nodded slowly. "You feel like the odd man out with your group of friends."

"It makes sense," WayneWayne said with a shrug. "When the Jacksons got hired by Gustavo, they basically sold their soul to the guy, so whenever he calls them for help, they have to go. So, in essence, they spend about 70% of their time with them, 20% with me and Dak, and the other 10% on their own free time." He shook his head. "I know that it mostly has to do with their work and that they're doing their best of dividing their time between all of their friends, but it doesn't help that Kendall is wary around me, I'm sure that Logan doesn't like Dak, and we never really actually sat down and got to know each other. So, at times, it's kind of awkward when we're all hanging out together, but we're making the best of it."

"If they didn't want all of you guys to try and be friends, then they wouldn't hang out with you guys all the time." Jaycee reminded him. "Remember, your friends like trying to help other people's problems and think about other before themselves, and while you may feel that you're being slighted, they're the ones that went back home for some time off instead of following BTR around the country for their tour." She got up and walked over to WayneWayne, giving him a kiss on the back of the head. "Remember that."

"Yea, yeah," WayneWayne waved his sister out of the room, although he had a small smile on his though they got on each other's nerves more often than not, WayneWayne knew that talking to his sisters would always help him whenever he needed it.

"I just have a question though," Jaycee commented as she turned around to face her brother. "How come you and mom aren't getting along as much as usual? I mean, she came to Vancouver with us so it could be a family vacation, and you guys don't talk."

"Uh," WayneWayne opened his mouth but didn't say anything. He really didn't want to get into it now; it would just give him an even bigger headache than he already had. "It's nothing really," he shrugged. "I've just been so busy learning my lines," he picked up a packet of paper that was sitting in front of him. "I've been stressed."

"If that's the story that you want to go with," Jaycee shrugged before leaving the room. WayneWayne could hear her voice quieting as she walked to the den in the large suite that the Dooley family had gotten.

WayneWayne turned his attention to the sack that was sitting on the ground and lifted it onto his desk. He opened it up and watched as a bunch of fan-mail slid out on to his desk. He smiled a little bit as he looked through all of them. As stupid as it sounded, he liked getting a lot of fan-mail for the Ziggle Zaggles. There were a lot of mothers that thanked him for letting their kids smile every day, there were some from kids who wrote very cute, if not confusing, letters that thanked him for what he did, and then there were some letters from teenagers that expressed their love for the songs that he came up with for the shows. At the time, his most popular were the 'Banana Song' and the 'Bath Time Song'.

_If I don't hear my friends sing those songs to me ever again, it'll be too soon. _WayneWayne thought as he shook his head. Almost every time that he was ever around his friends, he got teased for working on Ziggle Zaggles, but he didn't really care. He liked being able to work with kids and make them happy, and since there weren't many shows that aired during the week, he was able to go out and audition for a lot of other roles as well as work on his screenwriting, directing, and filming whenever he needed it.

As he scanned through the letters on his desk, his phone rang and he quickly grabbed it, smiling when he saw who it was, and pressed the 'answer' button before putting it up to his ear. "Hey, Riles, what's up?"

"Not much over here," Riley replied in her accented voice, and then her voice became muffled as she shouted something over her shoulder to her brothers. "Sorry, we were just playing some video games when I remembered to ask you if you got your ticket to the guys' show in Denver. We were planning on meeting Dak and Lizzie while we were out there so we could all hang out after the show."

"I don't have it yet," WayneWayne replied as he wrote himself a quick note to remind himself to get it later. "I haven't gotten my filming schedule yet, as it is. So I have to wait for that."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that. How's Vancouver?"

"Not as cold as you would think," WayneWayne said with a slight laugh, knowing how much she and her siblings absolutely _hated_ the cold weather. They got somewhat dramatic about it and refused to go anywhere or even move and inch if they were cold. They were too used to living in their home of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and Los Angeles, California to enjoy the cold weather. "Then again, it's summer here, so I guess that makes sense." He crossed his legs the other way as he started to open some of his mail. "How's Australia?"

"Just as warm as when we left it," Riley replied. The voices seemed to have gotten louder and WayneWayne could hear Patrick screaming at something, so WayneWayne guessed that she had moved back to the den to watch the game that they were playing. "Which is how I like it, boofhead." He could hear the smirk in her voice and rolled his eyes. "What are you doing?"

"Looking through some fan-mail," WayneWayne replied as he read one and set it aside. He frowned as he recognized the handwriting on one and picked it up, quickly opening it. He scanned the letter and made a sound, which Riley must have heard, for she asked him what was wrong. "Listen to this,"

Dear WayneWayne,  
I'm so in love you with, you, but you would never know it. You don't know I exist, but I know everything and anything I need to know about you. I'm that big a fan. I know your birthday, the time you were born, where you were born, your favorite color, your family members' names, your pets' names, and what you favorite subjects in school are. No one can say that I'm a bigger fan of you than I am. I love you so much and I wish that one day I could meet you. I think I'm going to one of your dates on tour, but as of now I'm not sure. I can't wait until the day we meet; it will make my dream a reality. Love you WayneWayne! We should talk if you're ever bored, here's my number: 954-293-1843  
-Melissa

"Yeah," Riley chuckled. "A lot of fans basically use the same letter to send to a bunch of their favorite celebrities, mostly to get their autographs," she added as an afterthought.

"The only difference is that she added her phone number to this one," WayneWayne said. "Other than that, everything else is the same." He squinted as he re-read it. "You must be right though, I don't do any tours and this girl said that she would see me on tour."

"It probably went to a band first," Riley replied.

"Yeah, probably," WayneWayne muttered as he continued to look over the letter. He didn't know why, but something about it made him feel off. It wasn't the loopy-cursive handwriting that was there, it also wasn't all of the smiley faces that dotted the page. In fact, it seemed like a normal letter that he got from anyone else.

But…

WayneWayne leaned over and grabbed the envelope that the letter had come in. He scanned the front, his eyes narrowing in confusion. He hadn't told anyone what hotel he was staying at, and yet, the letter was directed to the exact hotel that he was in.

"What's wrong, you sound weird?" Riley asked. "Weirder than usual, at least," she added with a laugh.

"Nice to know that you even over 2000 miles away you can still find a way to make fun of me," WayneWayne commented. "Nothing really, it's just that, the Melissa girl, she sent me the letter directly to my hotel, and I never said which hotel I was staying in."

"You'd be surprised to find that fans can be very…sneaky when they want to be." Riley said. "They can find out where, when, and how you were born without you having to say anything."

"Good point," WayneWayne said. He looked at his watch. "What time is it there? It's 10 PM here."

"About 5 in the morning," Riley replied. "We're waiting for Ronan before we go to the beach so we can get our morning work-out done."

"You're on vacation and you're _still_ working out? That's some dedication there," WayneWayne said as he shook his head. "Anyway, I need to call Dak so I can talk to him about the tickets and everything."

"Alright, the others say 'hi'."

"Tell em' I said 'hi' back," WayneWayne dropped his feet to the ground. "I'll talk to you later, Babe."

"Sure, just one thing,"

"What's that?"

"_Never_ call me Babe."

WayneWayne smiled as he hung up on his girlfriend and then quickly dialed in Dak's number. He only had to wait for a few seconds before Dak picked up. "Dude, its WayneWayne."

"I know that," Dak replied. "All phones today have CallerID, you should use it sometime."

"Smart ass." WayneWayne quipped.

"I try." Dak replied. "What's up? I didn't think that you would call so late unless it's something that's really important." He lowered the volume on his TV before turning his attention back to his best friend. "You're not telling me that you can't make it out here, are you?"

"Yes," WayneWayne replied sarcastically. "Because I know that that'll break your heart." He shook his head. "No, I still have to figure out my filming schedule before I ask for some time off to go to Denver, but that's not what I called for. You know that letter that you got from that fan named Melissa?"

"Vaguely," Dak replied in monotone. "But I get so many I can hardly remember them half the time. Which really sucks when I bump into them on the street and hey ask if I remember them from the pictures that they put into the letter."

"Whatever," WayneWayne cut his friend off so he could get to the point. "I got a letter from her too, basically the exact same thing, but this time she put in her phone number with it. The weird part of it is that she sent it to my hotel here, and I didn't tell anyone where I was staying."

"Don't be underestimated with what fans can do," Dak warned his friend. "They're, like, superhuman, they can do anything they put their minds to."

"I don't doubt that," WayneWayne said as he shook his head. From the many stories that he heard from Big Time Rush and Dak about fans that had managed to sneak into their hotel rooms or onto their tour buses, or into their dressing rooms, he was actually very scared to become famous enough that people would stalk him. "I'll talk to you later."

"Later."

WayneWayne hung up his phone once more and pushed it away before turning back to his fan-mail. He kept Melissa's letter to the side.

Just in case he needed it again.

* * *

**A/N: **Sorry it's a shorter chapter, I wanted to get something in that would start up the suspense of the story. Trust me you guys, you won't see the twists for this story that I have planned, coming at all. Unless you're a very good guesser and can see the hints that I put in each chapter. Anyway, I'll update again soon.

Cheers,

-Riles


	6. Chapter 6: Strange Encounters

**Chapter Six**

_Strange Encounters of the Celebrity Kind_

* * *

"Liz, has anyone ever told you that you move really slowly?" Dak asked as he finished tying his shoes and stood up from the couch in his dressing room. He turned his attention to Lizzie, who was sitting in his chair, putting on makeup. "Like, _really_ slowly? You know we're only going to dinner, right?"

"You can't rush me, I'm putting on makeup," Lizzie replied with a short pout as she continued to focus on her reflection.

"Riles and Rhubes wear makeup and even _they_ don't take this long," Dak commented as he walked up behind his sister. "Not that you could ever tell apart from their eyes anyway." He let out a groan as Lizzie screwed up one cap and unscrewed another one. "Why do you all like to wear so much makeup anyway?" He started lightly tugging on the back of her ponytail.

Lizzie turned around in her chair and smacked at Dak's hands. "If I don't do this, then my eyes will sink in, which, in effect, with make my mouth disappear, and make my nose look too big and-"

"I'm sorry I asked." Dak commented as he held up his hands defensively.

Lizzie turned back to the mirror, the bright lights around the perimeter illuminating her face. "Just go read some of that fan-mail from New York and leave me alone." She murmured, opened her eyes and mouth wide as she put on mascara.

Dak shook his head and plopped down onto the couch and started to dig through his fan-mail once more. He pulled a few out and read some of them, setting them aside to reply to later. Even if he didn't have a lot of time to talk to fans, hardly getting a chance to go on his MyFace or ScuttleButter, he at least tried to respond to fans through their fan-mail. He also made sure to take pictures with as many fans that he could after shows, knowing that the moment that he took to acknowledge them made their day. Talking to DE and BTR, they all agreed that one of the best things about their job is that they were able to meet their fans and be able to make their day when they pose to take pictures.

"What's with that look on your face, Bro?" Dak looked up and noticed that Lizzie had turned around in her chair, making the final touches on her hair. "You look like you're concentrating really hard." She shook her head. "Are you stuck on a tough word? Sound it out and you'll get it." She giggled to herself as Dak rolled her eyes.

"It's not that," he replied lowering his gaze to the letter in his hand. "It's just another letter from Melissa, same thing that she sent WayneWayne." He slapped it against his palm. "I think that she sent it to my address in New York and in LA just to be sure that I got it."

"So what's the problem with that, she just wants to be sure she talks to you," Lizzie said with a shrug. She noticed that Dak's serious expression didn't change. "Are you thinking about when WayneWayne called you to talk about it a couple of days go?" She shrugged. "I'm sure it was nothing."

"You're probably right," Dak commented as he moved the letter over to the pile that he was going to respond to. "Might as well talk, it might make her life. Maybe she's lonely or something." He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and stood up once more. "Are you done yet?"

"Back off." Lizzie replied flippantly as she turned back around.

"Has anyone ever told you that you spend _way_ too much time with Katie?" Dak asked after noticing that her short outburst mimicked her brunette best friend quite closely. "You don't have a stash of money hidden anywhere do you? If so, I'm going to have to be careful what card games you guys play when you're together."

Lizzie couldn't help but laugh. Even though a lot of the time he was overprotective (which probably went into the territory of being a brother in general) she knew that he was only doing it to show that he cared. She sighed as she shook her head. She couldn't even remember the last time that it seemed like her parents cared. They would always get so excited about her dance recital and promise that they could make it, but then they would disappoint her and not make it at all. It was nice that her brother was always there to support her; it was even nicer when her friends would surprise her to see her recitals as well. But it was nothing like knowing that your parents would take time out of their day to support you in what you were doing. When they didn't show up, it just made her feel even worse than the last time she thought that they would actually show.

"Do you think that Mom and Dad are going to make it to your opening show?" Lizzie asked as she finally finished putting on makeup.

Dak snorted. "I wouldn't hold my breath about it." He replied. "Why do you think that I took you with me instead of leaving you all alone back home?" He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and busied himself by looking through it, trying to avoid the conversation.

Lizzie shrugged. "I don't know, I could have gone to Australia with the Jacksons, you know Ronan wouldn't have minded if I came with them." She shrugged again. "They have a lot of space back home." She added. She then gave a half smile. "Unless you would have been scared that I would spend all my time telling your _girlfriend _embarrassing stories about you when you couldn't defend yourself."

"You and I both know that nothing would stop you from doing that anyway," Dak commented as he put his wallet back in his pocket, ignoring her very unsubtle dig at him. "And I would have been more jealous of the fact that you got to spend more time with her than I would, than having to worry about you telling _lies_ about me." He added pointedly.

Lizzie shrugged. "I mean, you don't typically take me with you, so why did you decide to bring me on this one?"

Dak's eyebrows lowered. "I knew that I wouldn't have time to look out for you with everything else that I've done and this one, I have more time to do so. Plus, would you really want to stay home in that quiet house by yourself?" He continued when Lizzie shook her head. "It's probably the only good thing about them knowing about our Mom and Dad." He said more to himself than her. "But I also didn't want you to impose on their vacation and the short amount of time that they get to spend relaxing."

Lizzie slowly shook her head as she looked at her brother. Part of her believed him, but part of her also believed that he was hiding something that he was too embarrassed to tell her or to admit in general. She wasn't going to pressure him into telling her though, if he wanted to tell her, he would have on his own time. Besides, it wasn't like she wouldn't be able to trick it out of him anyway.

"You finally ready?" Dak asked.

Lizzie reached over and grabbed her purse off of the floor. "Ready." She replied with a smile.

* * *

"That was a good dinner," Lizzie said with a sigh as she wrapped her arms around Dak's neck. "They really know how to cook in Denver. I don't think that I can move, my stomach is so full."

Dak rolled his eyes as he shifted his arms under Lizzie's legs and hopped once, pushing her further up his back so she wouldn't fall down. "That's probably the only reason that I'm _carrying_ you back to the hotel. If I didn't offer to do it, I'd roll you back home."

"Are you calling me fat?" Lizzie let out a fake gasp as she hit her brother on the back.

"No, I'm just saying that you eat like a horse." Dak replied and then let out what was a cross between a laugh and a gasp of pain. Lizzie had let go of her brother with one hand and reached behind him to the waistband of his pants. With one sharp tug, she managed to pull his underwear and jeans up his ass-crack. "Ow! Ow! Lizzie, stop! I was kidding!"

Satisfied, Lizzie let go of her brother's jeans and leaned forward, giving him a kiss on the cheek. Dak smiled as he shook his head, continuing his walk back to the hotel that they were staying in while the Legally Blonde was being put on. It was one of the few perks of working in the show, he got the room for free, and it was big enough that he and Lizzie could both stay in it comfortably. The other reason that he brought her, not that he would totally admit it out loud, was that he knew that he was going to be lonely without her there. If she had gone with the Jacksons or just stayed back home, his loneliness would have increased and he would have probably fallen into what she called his 'depressive state' where he didn't do anything unless he was asked to hang out by his cast mates or he had a rehearsal to go to.

_It must be the disappointment that I've felt, being let down by Mom and Dad so much over the years. It's starting to get to me. _Dak thought to himself. _It's also probably the only reason that I can't stand being in my house when it's empty. It's no wonder WayneWayne noticed it so quickly._

"You have that look on your face again," Lizzie noted, speaking quietly so she wasn't yelling directly into his ear. "What're you thinking about?"

"Nothing." Dak replied shortly. "And let's just leave it at that." He let out a yawn. "I'm too tired to talk about it anyway." He stood short as a dirty-blonde girl blocked his path. "Oh," Dak stepped back so fast that he almost dropped Lizzie off of his back. "Sorry, I almost walked right into you."

"You're Dak, right?" The girl asked, as if she hadn't noticed that she had almost been knocked to the ground. "Dak Zevon? You're going to be in Legally Blonde?"

"We're rehearsing for it now, yeah." Dak replied with a nod. He bent down and slowly slid Lizzie off of his back so he could address her properly. He held out his hand and shook hers vigorously. "It's nice to meet you, are you a fan?"

"Yes," The girl replied with a bright smile. "My name's Lissa."

"It's nice to meet you, Lissa." Dak replied with a smile of his own. "It's always nice to meet a fan. They're what keeps me going."

"And trying to impress your girlfriend." Lizzie added shortly. Dak shot her a look, but Lizzie ignored him as she continued to look at Lissa. She studied her carefully; there was something off about this girl, she could just tell. She had a…for lack of a better word, hungry look in her eyes as she looked at Dak. Lissa must have noticed Lizzie's staring, for she turned to the younger blonde girl and gave her a smile, her eyes flashing.

"Oh and this is my sister, Lizzie." Dak said as he put an arm around her shoulders, bringing her into his side. Lizzie didn't say anything in reply, she just continued to study the girl. "We were just having dinner at this nearby restaurant."

_Way to tell her our life story, bro. _Lizzie rolled her eyes. Sometimes she hated how he moved into 'Teen Icon' mode after he met a fan. It made him talk a lot, trying to the make the fan feel comfortable. While there were times this was an admirable quality, other times Lizzie wanted to kick him because of it.

"Oh," Lissa's smile cracked a little. "You have a girlfriend?" Dak nodded slowly, as if he wasn't sure that he wanted to tell her that. "That's nice, how long have you two been together?"

Dak hesitated for a moment. Lizzie knew that he was torn with how much detail he should give about it. Patrick and Noah had given him and WayneWayne friendly advice not to say too much when it came to their relationships, knowing that back home they were still waiting for the right time to tell their fans about their abuse. Anything that a boyfriend or a date said could be linked back to it, so they now were very cautious over interviews, interviewers, and questions they were asked. Ronan, showing his dual role of a father and their manager said that no matter what happened he would help the best that he could, but in essence it was really their decision what to say if they were flat-out asked if they were with someone.

"Not long," Dak replied finally.

"Would I know who you're going out-"

"No," Dak quickly shook his head. Lizzie looked up at him, oddly. She knew that Dak and Rhuben had come to an agreement that if he was flat-out asked if he was dating her, he could say that they were dating, and if he wasn't asked, he wouldn't say anything about it. But he had just been asked and didn't say anything, although with everyone else, he was almost bouncing off the walls to tell them, since he had waited so long. "You wouldn't know her; she's someone I know from back home in Wisconsin."

"Oh, ok," Lissa's smile widened and she took a step towards Dak, looking him up and down. "But you haven't been together for long, that doesn't mean that you won't-"She stopped when a group of people suddenly walked over, pushing her out of the way a little bit. They obviously recognized Dak from one of his old movies, as they were bouncing around and squealing about _Varsity Vampire._

Lizzie actually hated that movie and made fun of her brother about it all the time. After it came out, she went around for a month taunting him with a game of basketball as well as throwing chunks of garlic at him, making jokes about how he wasn't melting from it. She was probably 11 or 12 at the time that it came out and thinking about it now, she was sort of a brat about it. But she really hated the movie and she was never afraid to tell her brother what she thought.

Lizzie pulled her phone from her pocket and pressed speed dial 5, watching as Dak started to sign as many notebooks and iphones that were shoved into his face. She waited for the ringing to stop.

"Hello?" Patrick's voice came onto the line.

"Hey," Lizzie said quickly. "I'm sorry if it's really late or really early where you are, but I need to talk to you guys." She paused. "But make sure your sisters don't hear you." She added.

"Hold on," Lizzie heard the sound of pounding feet for a few moments and then the sound of people grunting in pain. There was silence, muffled voices, and then she heard Patrick's voice on the phone once more. "Hey Lizzie, we're all here." Patrick said. She could hear the slight concern in his voice. "What's up?"

"I need you guys to do me a favor," she replied.

"Done." Patrick said simply.

Lizzie blinked and pulled the phone from her ear, looking at it in surprise for a moment. She spoke slowly as she put the phone back to her ear. "You don't even know what I was going to ask." She didn't even know why she said that, she knew that every time she needed help on something they would be there to help her even before she had to say anything.

"Doesn't mean we won't help you." Noah said, solidifying her thoughts.

"Alright, so, you know that Melissa chick that's been sending letters to Dak and WayneWayne?" Lizzie asked. She looked over her shoulder at her brother, who was still signing autographs. "I know that they've only gotten one so far, but, I don't know, I have a weird feeling. I was wondering if you'd be able to find out anything just by analyzing her handwriting or something."

"Analyzing her handwriting only gives you her personality," Sydney commented. "Not anything else that you'd want to know, like," he paused. "Her full name for a background check or something." He laughed along with his brothers, and Lizzie could almost see the dimples that were probably put into the younger boy's cheeks. "Wait," Sydney paused. "That's what you want, isn't it? A background check on this girl?"

"Well, Riley was the one that said that they have to worry about a fan being a fanatic." Lizzie replied slowly.

"Yeah, only 1 out of 10 times," Noah said, sounding confused. "Most of the time they just emotionally invest themselves into the celebrity."

"Yeah, but there's still the chance," Lizzie insisted. "You remember that one story of that girl that committed suicide because she heard that Justin was dating Britney? You know, the girl that thought that Justin really liked _her_."

"You _know_ that was a hoax, right?" Patrick asked.

"I do know that," Lizzie was starting to become frustrated.

Obviously they couldn't see how this could be something that they needed to watch out for. Granted, they knew how fans worked better than she ever could, having been around them ever since they started working on music. But they never had the potential to be stalked, as they had (somewhat) heavy security, especially after their father had gone to jail. They didn't have to worry about it anymore; they even had a security officer that was a friend of theirs continuously visit them when they were back home. So if a fan ever tried to get to them, it would be over and done with pretty quickly. But Dak and WayneWayne were different. Admittedly, since Big Time Rush came onto the scene, Dak wasn't as famous as he used to be, she and her brother had both mentioned it a few times. And if Lizzie had to guess, Dak was a bit jealous of it, but knew that fame went in waves, and she also knew that he was enjoying his run with musical theatre. And WayneWayne was only popular amongst young kids, so he didn't really have to worry much, save for the few cougars that had gone after him.

"Listen, he's my brother, I just want to be sure that he's ok." Lizzie continued.

"Oh don't worry, we get that," Patrick reassured her. "You should see how anxious we get over Ri and Rhu when it comes to meet and greets. Did you know that a lot of fans could be really grabby? It's like they don't know personal space boundaries."

Lizzie smiled a little bit. "So can you do this for me, if I scan it to you or something?"

"It'll be easier if we do it when we go to Denver next week." Sydney replied. "But I can do my best with what I have so far."

"Thanks guys," Lizzie let out a relieved sigh that she didn't know that she was holding. "That makes me feel better."

"No worries. Peace."

"Bye." Lizzie hung up her phone and turned back to her brother.

She continued to wait patiently as he stood around, gave autographs, took pictures with, and chatted to a bunch of fans. Lizzie's eyes narrowed slightly as she looked over at Lissa, who was still standing by Dak, grabbing his attention every once in a while. When his attention was turned to someone else, an angry scowl would cross her face. But it would melt away each time Dak turned back to her.

"Back off, bitch," Lizzie muttered under her breath as she waited for her brother. "He's with someone and I'm _not_ going to let you screw that or his life up."

* * *

**A/N: **Alright, the things that I've said about Dak responding to fans is from what I've observed with his Facebook and Twitter. His FB page (which I'm sure is run by someone in his family or something) is updated more than this Twitter, and I know that he always takes pictures with fans after shows, so that's where that came from. Sorry that most of these chapters are dialogue driven, I'm working on it for the next ones as things pick up. Also, there will be more Della and Wiley before the story finishes.

This is the chapter where Lizzie, Patrick, Noah, and Sydney solidify their parts of the story and how they help drive the plot along. I still don't know how long this story is going to be, it might be a bit shorter than I anticipated (maybe 15 chapters), since I'm already sort of getting to the point of the story, but who knows. Let me know what you guys think.

Oh, and to those that asked, chapter five is about two weeks after chapter four.

I'll update again soon.

Cheers,

-Riles


	7. Chapter 7: Wary

**Chapter Seven**

_Wary_

* * *

"Cut! Great job everyone; you have an hour and a half for a lunch break and then come back here so we can start the next scene!"

WayneWayne smiled and clapped along with his cast mates, watching as the director and cinematographer started to pack up their things and get ready for the next scene. He ducked out of the way as some of the crew started to walk by, carrying large pieces of set. He couldn't explain it, just something about being on set, whether he was watching his father produce, acting in the production, writing his own TV pilots, or even having a short chance to film something, it gave him a high each and every time. It was something that he ended up being more addicted to than he thought. The only complaint that he had about it was constantly leaving his friends for weeks at a time.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Dak's number. "Hey Dak, it seems that we're going to be done working earlier than I had planned, so I'll be down in Denver a couple of days early. Let me know about the hotel info and I'll get back to you later." After leaving the message, he hung up the call and dialed another number. "Hey Riles, I'm guessing it's either really late or really early since you're not picking up, I hate the time change thing here. Sorry about that, anyway, I think it's your turn to pick out the movie that we watch, so I hope you have that done by the time you get to Denver so we can have another date. Later." Once again, he hung up that call and dialed another one. "Hey Rhubes, like I said to Riles, it must be really late or early there, sorry. But I need you to do me a favor so call me back when you get the chance, please and thanks."

He hung up his phone once more and headed over to the craft services table to figure out what he was going to eat that day for lunch. It was probably his second favorite thing about working, every one of his favorite food items was on the craft table. The whole time that he had been in Vancouver, he and his cast mates had been eating nothing but crepes. It was his new food obsession and he didn't think that he was going to shake it anytime soon.

WayneWayne grabbed a plate off of the end of the craft services table and started to move down the buffet line, looking to see what he wanted to eat that day. He lifted his head, his eyes scanning around to see where his cast mates had gone to sit. It was a bit of tradition for them to eat together every day. WayneWayne liked that about working with people that were close to his age, he didn't have to eat alone, and they actually became friends. When it was people that were older than him, he was never sure if they were acting professional or not.

When it comes to working on movies or TV you never know.

WayneWayne turned his attention back down to his plate and continued to step to the side, accidentally jostling a girl beside him, knocking her plate to the ground.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" WayneWayne bent down and quickly picked everything up, handing it back to her. He then gave a sheepish smile. "I don't even know why I'm giving this back if you have to throw it all away now," he said with a slight laugh.

"Oh, it's alright," the girl replied with a bright smile, moving her dirty-blonde hair from her face. "I wasn't sure if I was going to eat any of this anyway." She gave him a pleasant smile before tossing the plate out into the trash can beside her. Her smile widened as he reached over and grabbed another plate, handing it to her. "I'm Mel, by the way." She greeted. She cut WayneWayne off as he opened his mouth to speak. "And you're Wally Dooley, yeah; I have a cousin that loves to watch the Ziggle Zaggles."

WayneWayne paused. "You don't expect me to sing the Banana or Bath Tub song do you?" He asked slowly.

Mel giggled, her green eyes flashing. "No," she reassured him, shaking her head. "I hear that enough at home. Plus," she looked at him out of the corner of her eye as she started to stack up her plate again. "I'm sure that you get enough teasing from your friends about it." She then turned to face WayneWayne completely. "I can see how that can get annoying."

"You can't be friends if you don't tease each other every once in a while," WayneWayne shrugged. He then studied her closely. "I don't mean to be rude, but I haven't seen you around much-"

"Oh, I'm a new temporary intern." Mel supplied quickly. Her eyes darted back and forth, as if she was trying to figure out what she wanted to say next. She noticed WayneWayne looking at her, waiting to see if she was going to keep going, and blushed, looking at her feet. "I want to become a cinematographer."

"That's cool, as clichéd as it sounds; I want to be a director." WayneWayne nodded encouragingly.

"It's not clichéd when you have the face for it," Mel replied sweetly. "Hollywood, or Canada for that matter, could use better looking directors." She seemed to have noticed the way he froze and the uncomfortable look across his face for she took a step back. "I'm sorry, I'm being too forward. You have a girlfriend right? From the DarkElements?"

WayneWayne blinked slowly, trying not to panic. "How did you know that?" he asked slowly. So far he hadn't told anyone besides his family and friends that they had started to go out. He didn't officially announce it to anyone, as he was still waiting for Riley and Ronan to get back to him after talking to their publicist about it as well as to what to expect now that people knew.

Mel shrugged. "I read it in a magazine," she replied quietly. "It was PopTiger, Universe, or BopMe. I don't remember which one." She shrugged. "They all sound the same."

_Fuck, _WayneWayne squeezed his eyes shut. _Riley's going to kill me if she doesn't know about this already._

"You're dating Rhuben right?" Mel continued.

"Riley." WayneWayne corrected.

"Sorry," Mel lightly hit herself on the forehead. "I can never tell the two of them apart." She looked over her shoulder for a moment before picking up her plate. When she turned back to WayneWayne, her eyes narrowed a little bit and a small, devious smile slid over her lips. "I have to go and sit with the other interns, but I'd like to see you around sometime, you seem like the kind of person that would be interesting to talk to."

"Thank you…?" WayneWayne phrased it as a question, not sure if he should outright thank her for the compliment.

Mel smiled and walked away.

And for the first time in his life, WayneWayne felt unsafe.

* * *

**A/N: **Sorry it took a while for me to update and sorry the update is short, I've been working as well as doing some yard work. I've also had a bit of writer's block that I couldn't shake. But here's the best that I could do, I didn't want you guys to wait so long for it so that's why I just did this, but hopefully it still amps up the suspense and everything. I hope you can overlook the wait by enjoying the chapter. *Sheepish Smile*

Cheers,

-Riles


	8. Chapter 8: Snooping and Hacking

**Chapter Eight**

_Snooping and Hacking_

* * *

"Did they go to sleep yet?" Sydney asked, drumming his fingertips on his knees. His legs were crossed and he had his laptop resting on his legs. He was sitting in the den, all lights in the house were off, and so his computer illuminated the room in a bright blue glow.

"Hold on," Patrick replied from where he was crouched at the top of the stairs. He watched as his sisters closed the door to their room and waited for the light to go off before he turned and hurried back down the stairs to his brothers. "Light's off, go ahead."

Noah quietly walked back from Ronan's room, using large steps and stepping on the balls of his feet so the wooden stairs wouldn't creak as he did so. Patrick and Sydney watched, waiting patiently as he rounded the couch and pulled himself up onto the arm rest. "Ronan's been out for the past half hour, I don't think that he's going to wake up any time soon."

"Good," Sydney booted up his laptop and brought up the Google search engine. "First what we need to do is get all the facts about this chick." He crossed his arms over his chest and squeezed his eyes shut. "Being a teenage girl, what do you think she would be interested in besides Dak and WayneWayne?" He leaned forward and rested his chin in his hands. "Besides the obvious, I mean."

Patrick looked over at Noah, who shrugged in reply. Patrick then frowned as he laced his fingers together, resting his elbows on his knees, life he usually did when he was thinking hard. There wasn't much for them to go off of, just the letters that they had seen, and Lizzie's phone call. Plus, they only had her first name, so there really wasn't much to go off of from there. Patrick moved his eyes up to the ceiling as he continued to think about what sort of clue they could go off of. It wasn't really that odd, fans got carried away a lot of the time, but he even had a weird idea about it when Rugby had been barking at the bushes when they were at Dak's house that one day and Dak didn't find anything.

_Riley wasn't lying when she said that Rugby only barks if something is there. _Patrick let out a sigh as he rubbed his forehead. "You think she has a blog or a twitter or something?" He asked after a second more of thought. "Most teenagers today do, but you never know, her parents might not want her to have one."

"If anything she probably has a ScuttleButter to follow all of our ScuttButts and everything." Noah murmured, rubbing his mouth with his hand. "But even if she does, it'll be hard to find her, especially since there's so many Melissa's out in the world.

"Yes," Sydney nodded once. "But how many of them like both Dak and WayneWayne?" Sydney asked as he started to type on his laptop. "I don't mean to be mean, but realistically, fans usually like one person more than someone else. Just like BTR, you can like the whole band; someone's going to be their favorite. So we can narrow it down there."

"Plus, you need to factor in that she sent mail to Dak's NY and LA address as well as to WayneWayne's hotel." Patrick agreed. "How many people would be smart enough to figure out _exactly_ which hotel he was going to be staying in?"

Sydney snorted as he shook his head, keeping his eyes on his laptop screen. Obviously they didn't realize how easy it could potentially be. With all of the ScuttButting they did with their friends and their fans, and the fact that some of them didn't take off the location on their posts, it wasn't that hard. Considering WayneWayne was always talking about going to Vancouver with his Dad and taking as many pictures of the hotel room as possible, anyone that has been in Vancouver can easily figure out which hotel it was. And since Dak was going to be in Denver to do the show Legally Blonde, it wouldn't be hard to find the auditorium that the production was going to be held in as well as the closest hotels and restaurants so she could "accidentally" bump into Dak.

"It's not that hard," Sydney murmured. "Let me check the recent ScuttleButter mentions with the two of them," He scrolled over the page and Patrick and Noah leaned over so they could see as well.

Noah shook his head. "Nothing but the mentioning of their bromance." He muttered. He then sat up straight and looked at his brothers seriously. "Is it just me or have a lot of people been getting really into the bromances from our bands and everything?"

"It's not just you," Patrick replied with a slight shake of his head.

"Nothing," Sydney cracked his knuckles. "Ok, let's try something else," he minimized his web browser and brought up another application that was sitting on his laptop desktop. Patrick and Noah watched with rapt interest as he typed in a few words in a little box and then sat back as numbers and letters started to whiz by on the screen.

"Uh, what are you doing?" Patrick asked, scratching the back of his head.

"Since a simple search of her interests through ScuttleButter and through the first few pages of Google didn't work, I figured I would go with my fail-safe method." Sydney replied modestly as he pulled his goggles off of his face, pushing it up onto his forehead, making the fringe of his black/blue hair stand straight. "Simply put, what it does is you put in a few keywords that you're using, add in the specifics that you need, and put it into this program and it cross-references everything that I have on my computer about said subjects as well as every page of the internet."

"Huh," Noah looked impressed. "So with this, how easy would it be to figure out the password to someone's computer? Do you have something that can make it do that?"

Sydney smiled. "I already have all of your guys' and Ronan's, and I'm now working on James'." He paused. "But don't tell anyone, I would probably lose all of my research and then I also wouldn't be able to do work on our CDs back here."

"Just as long as you only use my password to fix my laptop, then we're good." Noah said and held out his hand towards his baby brother. Sydney reached out to shake his hand, but Noah quickly pulled his back. "And you only use their passwords to hack into their computers when you really need it and not just for fun." He added pointedly.

Sydney pouted and rolled his eyes. "Fine," he grumbled and shook his hand. "But in the case of an emergency, all that goes out the window."

Patrick chuckled, shaking his head. As long as his brother's super brain wasn't directed towards him, it was perfectly fine. Patrick turned his gaze back to Sydney's computer and pointed, being careful not to touch the computer screen, as he had been warned many times before.

"Looks like you've got something," He said.

"Mhm," Sydney leaned forward and pressed a series of buttons, causing multiple images to go flashing across the screen before a new internet window popped open to a girl's tumblr. "Tumblr, I should have thought about that." He commented, shaking his head. "Look, she has a MyFace _and _a ScuttleButter as well. But it was would be hard to find," he pointed, motioning for Patrick and Noah to lean closer. "For whatever reason, she spells her name MeLissa, instead of the regular Melissa. But she wrote using block letters so you couldn't really tell the difference."

"So what does this mean?" Noah murmured as he placed his hands over his mouth. "Her tumblr is dedicated to Dak and WayneWayne, so what?"

"So," Patrick drew out the word as he leaned forward and pressed the down arrow key. "Most of the notes on her posts have to do with her being a stalker." He crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't think that that's a coincidence." He commented. He squinted as he leaned forward. "Then again, they're saying that she's a stalker because she always seems to know where they are. But," he shrugged. "It's like that Sarah chick that _always_ comes to our signings and stuff."

"Stalker Sarah?" Sydney wrinkled his nose.

"Exactly."

"So, that's what any fan does." Noah commented with a careless shrug. "You know, when they have the money for it."

"Yeah, but how many people posts thing on tumblr about their parents being worried because she seems to have an obsession with these people?" Sydney brought up another window and placed it over the web browser. "According to this, if I have the right person, she's had some restraining orders put against her from YellowCard, Papa Roach, and Hawk Nelson. From Ryan, Jacoby, and Davin to be specific."

Noah's face twitched. "Can you trace her IP address to figure out her full name?" He asked quickly.

"Please," Sydney gave a modest smile. "That was the _first_ thing that went through the computer as soon as I found her tumblr." He twisted his mouth to the side. "MeLissa Haggart, lives in Nebraska-"

"That explains the obsession, nothing happens in Nebraska." Patrick commented. "What's this?" Patrick noticed something bright in the corner of the screen. "It looks like an itinerary." Sydney brought it up and the three brothers frowned as they looked at the screen. "Two different flights to Denver and Vancouver." He made a sound at the back of his throat. "That's strange," he commented. "It's booked for the same day; the flights are only one hour apart."

"It doesn't mean that she took both of these though, she could have used one to see where she wanted to go first," Noah reminded them. He tilted his head to the side. "From what I can tell, she decided to go to Denver first."

"Maybe not," Sydney murmured. He tabbed over to an empty Firefox tab and typed in a new website, before browsing through many different pages.

"Uh, Syd, why are you looking through Qantas airlines?" Patrick asked, scratching the side of his head.

"Because we need to get to Denver, and we need to get there as soon as possible." Sydney commented with a determined smile. "And," he paused. "We're going to tell Riley and Rhuben about this tomorrow morning, and hope to _god_ that Ronan doesn't find out."

* * *

**A/N: **So I needed to do another chapter with the Jacksons (even though it didn't show Riley, Rhuben, and Ronan) to help push Patrick, Noah, and Sydney's subplot along. What did you guys think? I don't know why these last couple of chapters has been short, but the rest will be longer. Only 7 chapters left.

Cheers,

-Riles


	9. Chapter 9: Dazed and Confused

**Chapter Nine**

_Dazed and Confused_

* * *

"I still don't see why you guys decided to come out here so early." Dak said with a short sigh as he crossed his arms over his chest. He turned his head to the side and looked over at Rhuben, who gave him a hard stare, and smiled a little. "Not that I'm not happy that you guys are here," he added quickly. "Because I really am, I just think that you're overreacting a little bit." He looked to his other side and glanced at WayneWayne, who looked like he wasn't sure whether or not to agree.

"Overreacting?" Lizzie asked with a slight snarl. "Overreacting?" She planted her hands on her hips as she looked at the two boys, slowly shaking her head. "Do the words _Stalker Sarah_ mean anything to you?"

"Who?" WayneWayne blinked in confusion.

"Long story," Sydney said quickly. "Anyway, you think that we're overreacting about Melissa, that's ok," he shrugged as he started to pace the room. "That's perfectly fine actually. But when you see all of this proof stacked against her, you'll start to notice that there's something _wrong_ with this chick!" He snapped, now crossing his arms over his chest. He waved a hand at his siblings and Lizzie. "Now, we've talked this over and we all think that there is more to this girl than meets the eye. We think she's dangerous."

"You think a 5'1", 90 pound girl is dangerous?" Dak snorted.

"You can't possibly tell me that you don't think there's something odd about her?" Riley said. "I told you ever since you got the first letter that you have to look out for fans." She paused and slowly brought a hand up to her chin. "You don't think…"she paused as she turned to Rhuben, who looked back at her.

Dak groaned as he tilted his head back, noticing that they were having another silent conversation. "I _hate_ it when they do that." He murmured.

"Only because you don't know if they're talking about you," WayneWayne replied.

He turned back to his friends in front of him and studied each of them. He was starting to get as nervous as they were when he was still on set in Vancouver; Lissa seemed to appear everywhere that he was. And when she appeared at his hotel room one day, saying that he had forgotten his script, he quickly locked the door and told his family not to open it if they ever looked through the peephole and saw her. Jaycee and Natalie, of course, jumped at the chance to tease him about it, saying that he was a player and that he would have to be careful of juggling more than one girl at the same time. But they could sense his seriousness and greed to it. His father even went as far as to keep her busy with her internship jobs so WayneWayne could finish his scenes and get on a flight to go to Denver. His worry went away, thinking that he was overreacting, but that was until he found out that the Jacksons were going to Denver early as well.

His anxiety spiked even more when he had seen the looks on their faces when they had met up. Now they were all in Dak's dressing room after one of his rehearsals, trying to talk to them about it. But Dak seemed to be the only one that wasn't paying any attention to the anxiety that all of their friends were feeling. He didn't want to give into it, knowing that there was a chance that they could be wrong. But he hadn't ever seen them wrong before so…

"What is it?" Dak urged.

"Well, it's like she said before," Rhuben shrugged. "Rugby doesn't bark at something unless there's something there." She trailed off.

"So what you're telling me is that you think that this chick could have possibly been hiding in the bushes at my house?" Dak asked.

"It's possible!" Sydney insisted, slapping the papers down onto the coffee table in the center of the room.

Noah nodded as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands together in front of her. "We found her tumblr and her ScuttButt page. Both of them are dedicated to you two." He looked back and forth between Dak and WayneWayne. "Not that that's anything to worry about," he added with a hint of sarcasm.

"What you have to worry about is our two pieces of evidence," Patrick jumped in, moving to the floor as he rested his knees on the ground. He pointed to the left one. "Her flight itineraries to Denver and Vancouver. Just by watching your guys' ScuttleButters' or MyFaces she could easily find out where you guys were going to go. And after that, it couldn't be that hard to figure out where you guys were going to be staying. Which is how she could have found you here and WayneWayne in Vancouver."

"Which is fucking psychotic if you ask me." Lizzie muttered.

"Liz." Dak admonished, causing his little sister to fall silent.

"And then there're the restraining orders that she got from Ryan, Jacoby, and Davin." Rhuben said slowly. "All of them are, fairly attractive in their own way; they're young, and their successful. It's not hard for her to immediately, for lack of a better term, glomp on one and wants to get as much attention from them as possible.

Dak and WayneWayne nodded. They knew what that was like. Being friends with Big Time Rush and the DarkElements, they had seen just how psyched people got over a little bit of acknowledgement. A reply or a re-Buttle on ScuttleButter from one of them could send fans into hysterics. Just by looking at them during a song could create them to go into tears. Even a hug during a meet and greet had caused fans to pass out, so they now had at least two ambulances on call when a new one was scheduled. They've seen it before.

"She also says that she's constantly getting flack from her parents for being so into these people," Rhuben continued. "_And_ she's apparently had a restraining order been put against her by the three of them."

"I've seen a fan get a restraining order from ScuttButting someone too much," Dak denied, looking at his fingernails. "Their management thought that they could potentially be threatening, and in the end, he put up a restraining order, so that could have happened there."

"He has a point." Riley admitted after a second.

"Ok," Patrick licked his lips, slightly stumped. "Then how do you explain her seeing you here and then her seeing WayneWayne in Vancouver?"

"Easy," Dak shrugged. "Mel's family could possibly be rich and-"

"Wait," WayneWayne held up a hand, effectively cutting Dak off. "Did you say that her name was Mel?" Dak nodded and WayneWayne frowned. _That doesn't make any sense. _He thought to himself, slowly starting to realize what sort of trouble they could be in. _Unless she had a reason to hide her true identity, and she __was__ able to find my hotel room when I was back in Vancouver. _He shook his head again. "The girl I met, she said her name was Lissa."

That stumped everyone in the room. How would she be able to get to two places at once? The idea that Dak was surely getting at, that her family was rich enough to let her use a private jet was plausible. There were many people out there that were spoiled rotten by their parents and could get away with just about anything. And, they didn't know how far apart the visits had been since there was the time difference and everything that could easily screw everything up.

_But then why would she spell her name weirdly? _Sydney raised his hand to his chin as he thought hard, squeezing his eyes shut. They then flew open and he let out a quiet gasp. _That's it!_

"And if you're so worried," Dak broke in. "Why haven't you told Ronan or anyone that this is going on? 'Cause if I were even remotely worried, then I would have told my agent and my manager by now."

"Oh, for _fucks_ sake, Dak, would you just listen?" Riley snapped, clearly losing her temper.

It was obvious as to why they didn't tell Ronan, because of the media. If they told him, he would immediately call the police, and having Dak's, WayneWayne's, and the Jacksons' names plastered all over what was going on, it would just cause problems for everyone. As well as more rumors than they could possibly stand. After Patrick, Noah, and Sydney had told their sisters what they thought was going on, the first thing they agreed on was that as long as they could handle it, they weren't going to tell anyone. The less anyone knew the better.

It might have seemed a bit selfish, but it was for the best.

"I don't have to listen to something if I don't think that it's true." Dak replied firmly.

Riley's eyebrows raised and she looked at him for a moment before shrugging. She turned on her heel and left the dressing room. Patrick gathered the sheets of paper that were on the coffee table and folded them back up, shoving them into one of the wide pockets on his shorts before following her. Lizzie, Noah, and Sydney quickly left after him and WayneWayne hesitated before following them. Rhuben closed the door behind them and waited for Dak to say something, watching him silently as he moved about the room, as if he was stalling for time.

He ran a hand over his mouth and pointed to the door behind. "I have to go meet with the director to-"

"So why won't you listen to anyone when they say that this chick is dangerous?" Rhuben confronted Dak, moving in front of him so he couldn't leave the room. Dak looked at her out of the corner of his eye as he turned away, staying silent. "You _do_ know that she is, don't you?"

"Even though she hasn't actually physically hurt anyone?" Dak replied, keeping his back to her.

Rhuben let out an annoyed sigh. "But don't you think that it's possible for her to get there?" She shook her head. "Looks can be deceiving, you know."

"Trust me, I know that," Dak said cynically. "I'm friends with Big Time Rush; I think I know that proverb by now."

"Then what's the problem?" Rhuben walked over to Dak and grabbed onto his arm, turning him around. "Listen," she grabbed onto the sides of his face, forcing him to look directly at her. "It's just me that you're talking to, and I know that you wouldn't want to worry Lizzie about this. But even though I'm your girlfriend…" she paused. "I guess," she quickly shook her head. "I'm your friend first, and you can talk to me."

Dak swallowed. "I know." He replied with a nod.

"So why is it that you're acting like there's no threat when you know there is?" Rhuben asked.

"Because I don't want to have to admit that, just like everyone else," Dak clenched his hands into fists. "I'm scared."

* * *

"What are we going to do now?" Lizzie asked as she hurried to keep up with Riley, who was walking down the street with an open stride, obviously letting out her anger that way instead of yelling at people. "We have to convince him somehow."

"And we might have to do that without him," Riley remarked as she slowed to a stop, looking up at the sky. "We might just have to catch her ourselves." She looked over her shoulder and her hardened expression softened as she looked at her brothers. "I wish you guys weren't caught up in this."

"But there's no way that you're getting us out of it now," Patrick said stubbornly. "Not after everything that we've found out."

"I was afraid that you were going to say that," Riley said with a chuckle. She reached out and gently rubbed the back of Lizzie's head, pushing her forehead. "Walk her back to the hotel please? I want to talk to WayneWayne about something."

Noah nodded and looked up at the moon before waiting for Lizzie to walk over to him and his brothers before they walked off down the sidewalk. WayneWayne waited for them to turn the corner before turning to Riley. He wrung his hands together nervously as he walked over to her, stopping when he was standing in front of her and had to look down to look directly into her face.

"I…think I know what you wanted to talk about." He said slowly and rushed to finish as Riley opened her mouth to speak. "I'm sorry that everyone knows about you and me, but I swear I didn't say anything. I was really confused when Lissa told me that she found out about it from the magazines that are always talking about us. But I didn't say anything and I know that my family didn't, so I don't know how they found out. I just hope you haven't been bombarded by questions and that your publicist and Ronan aren't mad. I don't blame you if you hate me, but I hope you don't." He finally stopped to take a breath when he noticed that Riley was looking at him funny. "So…say something." He directed.

Riley gave a half smile as she chuckled. "Well for one thing, I could never hate you." She said to reassure him. "I could strongly dislike you, but it's not in my nature to hate people." She rolled her eyes as if to say 'isn't that perfect' and then continued. "But for another thing, WayneWayne," she tilted her head to the side. "I don't know what the hell you're babbling about."

"The…the magazines," WayneWayne replied. "They know about you and me dating…"

Riley squinted her eyes as she righted her head. "I've been looking at the tabloids and magazines ever since I got into the music industry and there's _nothing_ there that has to do with you and me." She shook her head. "No one besides our families, Dak, Lizzie, and our publicists know that we're dating."

"You…" WayneWayne looked dumbstruck. "You're sure?" he asked.

"Yes," Riley nodded, her eyes widening. "But," she then looked suspicious. "If you never told anyone about us and I sure as hell haven't," she added quickly. "How did Lissa know that you were dating me and why would she say that she found out from the magazines if it wasn't true?"

For once, WayneWayne had no answer.

* * *

"I don't get why Dak is shutting us out about this," Lizzie said as she wiped tears away from her cheeks. "He talks to me about everything, and I know that he knows that we're right." She shoved her hands into her jeans pockets. "Why won't he listen to me?"

"Probably because he doesn't want to scare you?" Noah shrugged. "I don't know, but if anyone can convince him about what's really going on, then it's Rhu."

"So, for now, we're on our own about this," Patrick rubbed his hands together. "I still don't get how she was able to visit Dak and WayneWayne." He shook his head. "And why would she change her name to do it?"

"Maybe she didn't," Sydney reasoned, coming to a stop. He stopped so suddenly that Patrick walked into him and almost flipped over his significantly shorter brother and fell to the ground. He turned around to look at them. "What if she _didn't _change her name?" The three of them looked at him oddly. He sighed in exasperation. "Think about it, how would she be able to be in two places at once and why would she change her name? If she wanted them to know it was her, she could keep her name. And even WayneWayne looked confused when Dak said her name was Mel." He continued.

"So?" Noah urged him to continue.

"_So_," Sydney stressed the word. "Do you think it's possible that-"

Sydney was cut off as a rope with a lasso on the end flew out of nowhere and wrapped themselves around the four of them. He let out a cry as he was pulled off his feet, the lasso wrapping tightly around him and he was suckered against Patrick, Lizzie, and Noah, who also let out cries of surprise. Sydney struggled, trying to move his arms so he could reach his phone, but they were pinned to his dies by Patrick and Lizzie. He kicked his feet back and forth, trying to get them on the ground, but if he did that, then his brothers and his friend would have to bend at odd angles just to stand up or to compensate to him standing on the ground.

They were stuck.

* * *

**A/N: **So I decided that BTR isn't going to appear in this story and the rest of the story will be set in Denver. I don't know why these chapters are now becoming more dialogue driven, but I'm working on it. There's going to be drama galore in the next few chapters until the end, as the story ends in 6 chapters. I know that you guys might want to see more Della and Wiley in the story, but it'll basically only be hints/small scenes of it, as it's not the main point of the story. I hope you guys liked the chapter.

Cheers,

-Riles and Rhubes


	10. Chapter 10: Plans Unfold

**Chapter Ten**

_Plans Unfold, Peace Is Eminent_

* * *

"I never thought that being tied to you guys would be this unbearable." Patrick joked, trying to ease the tension. All that he got were mumbles in reply.

Patrick, Noah, Lizzie, and Sydney had been dragged to the warehouse by knife-point almost as soon as they were tired together. Their attacker had held it against Noah's back as they barked directions to the warehouse. Once they were inside, they were grabbed by the front of the rope and rigged up to some pulley system, so they were now being dangled in the center of the room, lightly swinging back and forth. Every time they struggled to get out of the ropes, it would tighten just a little bit more, so they got the message pretty quickly to not move. Either way, Noah could already feel his wrists being rubbed raw, it stung each time he moved, and he could feel blood starting to drip down his hands.

"_So what do you want to do with them? We're going to need to get rid of the evidence."_

"_Not yet, I want them to at least hear about our plan before we get rid of them."_

The four friends squeezed their eyes shut as a blinding light suddenly filled the room. Lizzie squinted her eyes, waiting to get adjusted to the light. She looked around the room, it looked better than the rest of the warehouse. She had barely gotten a glimpse of the warehouse as they were being put in, the roof was full of holes, and the outside panels looked like they would fall apart at the sudden gust of wind. But here, the room that they were in, it was better kept.

_She must have found out about this warehouse and fixed it up, knowing that no one else came here. _Lizzie reasoned to herself. Once her eyes adjusted to the light, and she looked down towards the floor, at the two girls that were looking up at them, proud grins on their faces. She let out a gasp as she got a good look at them. "They're-"

"Twins," Sydney supplied. "I thought so." He shrugged a little. "I was going to say it when we were attacked, but I guess they knew that that was what I was going to say."

"I must admit that I underestimated you way too much," Lissa said as she scratched the back of her head. "I mean, I knew you were smart, but not this smart." She frowned. "Logan's smart, but you're a genius or something." She snapped. "I should have done more research on you." She turned to Mel. "I _told_ you that the boys were going to be a problem too."

Mel shrugged as if to say 'I don't' care'. "We got them just like we wanted; I don't care if they know our little secret." She smiled pleasantly. "We just need to get their sisters here, get rid of them, and have Dak and WayneWayne to ourselves."

"You're a real sick fuck, you know that?" Noah commented.

Mel shrugged again. "You're acting like I've never heard that before." She said mysteriously. She slowly walked in a circle on the floor, looking at them at all angles. Her gaze locked onto Lizzie and her sweet smile widened. "It's such a pity I have to get rid of my future sister-in-law." She said wistfully.

"If you think that my brother is going to marry you, you're a fucking psycho." Lizzie snarled, resisting the urge to swing her legs down and kick Mel in the face.

"Oh, we are," Lissa said with a straight face and a nod. "You think we don't know that? Our parents even know that we're insane, but they don't care." She tilted her head to the side. "They wouldn't even give us the medication that we needed when we were diagnosed as schizophrenic." She suddenly looked wistful as she looked down at the knife in her hand. She flipped it into the air, catching it in her hand by the handle before turning and throwing it towards the four teens. It whizzed by Patrick's ear, making a whistling sound as it went. "Darn," Lissa pouted as she crossed the room to get the knife.

"What are we going to do?" Lizzie whispered as quietly as possible.

"Don't worry," Noah whispered back. "By this point, the others know that we're not at the hotel and are looking for us," he nodded over to Patrick. Lizzie whipped her head around the other way and craned her neck to look at Patrick. He kept his gaze on the floor, but with his hands stuck behind his back, he had somehow managed to get his phone from his pocket and was quietly typing on it. "They should be here soon."

* * *

"If she knew that we were dating and we never said anything to anyone, then she's been following us longer than we thought." Riley concluded, bringing a hand up to her forehead. She quickly ran her hand through her hair. "A lot longer than we thought, she could still be following us now."

WayneWayne noticed her anxiety and immediately felt his senses move into peak position. He knew that it was the adrenaline and the fear of being attacked at any moment that was driving it. Fans were unpredictable, and he had read many stories where the ones that they were stalking had been injured by them. Who knew what was going to happen to them now.

_It's a good thing that Lizzie's walking with the boys back to the hotel. Or else they'd be sitting ducks. _WayneWayne had that thought a split second before an even worse thought filled his head. _I hope she didn't-_

WayneWayne shifted his eyes back over to Riley, who suddenly froze, her eyes wide open. He knew that she had just had the same thought that she did, and before he could reach out to grab her, she turned and ran down the street, reaching the sidewalk that she had seen her brothers and friend turn down. He could tell from the way she ran back to him that they weren't there.

"Don't panic," he said before she could say anything. "Maybe they got back to the hotel."

"No," Riley shook her head. "No way, I know that something's up, I know she did something to them." She turned around, hearing footsteps as Dak and Rhuben burst out of the theatre building and over to their friends. "We think that she did something to them." She blurted out.

"I had the same feeling," Dak explained. "I can't even begin to explain it, it might be brother's intuition, or my over protectiveness or something," he took a deep breath from having ran so hard, so fast. "But I think something happened to Liz." He shook his head. "Like I said, I can't explain it, but I feel like she's in trouble."

"If she is," Rhuben looked grim. "And she's with our brothers; she wouldn't be in that much trouble. But if all of them are being overpowered, then yes." She nodded once. "It's bad, especially since this chick had restraining orders placed on her over and over and that numerous managers deem her as dangerous." She cracked her knuckles nervously as she looked around. "It's very bad."

"So what are we going to do?" WayneWayne asked. "Call the police?"

"That's the last thing that I would want to do," Rhuben replied, shaking her head. "If this chick is as insane as we think, then hearing police sirens might make her go completely insane and hurt them or even…" she paused, not able to say the word. "Do something worse before we can stop her."

"So what should we do?" Riley asked.

There was a bit of silence then. That was the problem. They _didn't_ know what to do. This girl had obviously been following them around for a long time, having known stuff they didn't even tell their closest friends, and now they could see that she was strong enough to take down two teenage boys, a teenage girl, and a little boy with no problem at all. Going to the police was out, and they had no idea where to even start looking for them.

"Knowing Syd," Rhuben spoke up. "Or even one of my brothers, he would leave behind something that would help us figure out where they are." She placed her hands over her face, taking a deep breath as she closed her eyes, thinking. She then turned and walked quickly down to the edge of the street to the corner. Riley, Dak, and WayneWayne followed her, trying to keep up with her pace. She looked both ways, and then up at the moon, before down the street again. Finally, she turned back around with a determined look in her eyes. "I have an idea." She announced.

* * *

"So when can we hear about your plan?" Noah asked quickly, hoping to drown out the clicking sounds as Patrick continued to type slowly. "You said so yourself, you wanted us to hear it before you got rid of us, or whatever."

"Oh," Lissa clapped her hands together, not seeming to care that she had a knife in her hands. "This should be fun." She turned to Mel. "Do you want to start?"

"Sure," Mel shrugged. "After being pushed away from Ryan, Jacoby, and Davin, we figured that there had to be _someone_ out there that would return the feelings of appreciation that we had for them. So we thought about Big Time Rush, but they didn't have that…I don't know what really," she twirled her hair around her finger as she continued to speak, as if talking to a therapist. "They didn't have that spark that we wanted."

"They were _too _famous." Lissa jumped in.

"Yeah, that must have been it." Mel shrugged as she started to pace in a circle once more. "They were too famous; too many people already liked them. So we looked through your group of friends and noticed that Dak and WayneWayne were good looking."

"_Very _good looking," Lissa corrected. She started to rock back and forth on her heels. "At that moment, we decided to know everything about them. Their favorite color, food, TV Show, sport, drink. Time or birth. _EVERYTHING _so that we could feel closer to them. And it worked."

"Ok," Lizzie swallowed thickly. "So we know that you're just as crazy as you originally thought. Explain how you knew where we were always going to be!" She demanded, putting up a false bravado.

Her heart was thudding in her chest and she wanted to cry. She had never been this sacred in her entire life; all she wanted was for her brother to be by her side, telling her that everything was going to be ok and that they could get through his together. But that wasn't going to happen if they couldn't find a way to get out captivity.

Lissa's smile waned. She turned to Sydney. "Why don't you ask him? He found our tumblrs and everything; he should be able to tell you the _whole_ story."

Sydney hesitated for a moment. "This started back when we had the pool party at Dak's house," he said slowly. Mel and Lissa turned their attention to him. "One of them was hiding in the bushes, after stalking Dak enough to find out his address. They were in the bushes, taking the attention from us as Rugby started barking at her, so the other could be undetected."

"You're right so far." Lissa said with a nod.

"What would they need to distract us for?" Patrick asked, lifting his head from the ground. His eyes shifted back and forth from Mel to Lissa over and over again, watching to make sure that they didn't notice his hands. If they looked up at a certain angle, they would see him texting for sure.

Sydney frowned, seemingly stumped. He closed his eyes and thought really hard about it. "To bug Dak's and WayneWayne's phones," he said suddenly. Lissa smiled again. "They monitored all of their phone calls as well as their ScuttleButters and MyFaces to follow Dak and WayneWayne around."

"Congrats," Mel clapped slowly. "You're such a smart little boy, you figured it all out."

"But," Sydney continued, causing Mel to freeze. "You heard something that you didn't like, which was what caused you to move faster than you intended. You followed Dak to Denver and WayneWayne to Vancouver when you knew that we were going to be in Australia, because you wanted to steal them from my sisters faster." He accused. "You knew they were dating and that set you off, so you tried to gain their trust faster, which still didn't work."

"Seriously, Syd, how do you do that?" Patrick asked. He swiveled his head and looked at Noah. "Makes you wish that you inherited Dad's smarts, huh?" Noah gave a half smile as he nodded in reply, before grimacing at the pain in his wrists.

Mel started to clap once more, acknowledging that what he said was completely true. "When I found out that Dak told her your secret about your family pretty quickly," Mel gave a little giggle, obviously very proud of herself. She turned to Lissa, who was grinning just as brightly. "I figured that I would use it to our advantage." She turned back to Lizzie. "It's nice to know that your family is exactly like ours," she left out a wistful sigh. "Dak and I have that in common, we'd be perfect for each other." She placed a finger to her chin. "Oh and we sent a letters to WayneWayne's mom about you guys, saying that you're nothing but thieves, liars, and drug dealers. And that you got into all sorts of trouble back home, just so we could raise some tension there. We didn't have to worry about the Zevons because, you know, they're never home."

Sydney said as he nodded slowly. "That makes sense." He nodded. "Hate to admit it, but I'm actually impressed."

"Yeah, I bet it took you _months_ to figure that one out." Patrick said sarcastically.

Mel's innocent expression faded and her mask cracked. Now they could see how angry she was. Turning to Lissa, she grabbed the knife from her hand and stormed over to the four friends. Before they could even try kicking her away, she pulled her arm back and thrust it forward, stabbing the knife into Patrick's thigh. She grinned gleefully as she pulled the knife back out, watching his blood spurt into the air.

Patrick grimaced in pain, clenching his teeth together as he tried not to scream out loud. His face paled and beads of sweat popped up on his forehead. His knee-jerk reaction to reach down and grab his thigh caused him to drop the phone that he was holding. Mel jumped back, as if it was scalding hot water, watching as it fell to the floor.

"Pat," Noah whispered. "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine." Patrick managed to reply, sucking air between his teeth.

Lissa snatched the phone off of the ground, looking at the screen. The phone was completely cracked, not of use to anyone. With a loud cry of 'fuck' she tossed the phone across the room. She turned to Mel and grabbed onto her shoulders, digging her fingers into the skin so hard that a grown man would cry out. But Mel just stood there, looking at her sister.

"I don't know if he got a text out," Lissa rasped. "But if he did, we should get rid of them now, before we have even more problems to deal with."

"Alright," Mel reached into her pocket and pulled out a knife. She then walked over to the free end of the rope that was tied to a metal beam in the room. She slowly started to untie it. "How should we do this?" she asked. "Quick or slow?"

"I think slowly would be better," Lissa said as her face darkened. She picked up her knife and looked at her reflection in it. "That way I can enjoy their screaming for mercy." She let out a low, throaty laugh and walked closer to the four friends, as Mel slowly lowered them to the ground. Lissa turned to Patrick, reaching a hand out towards him. "I'll show you that you don't mess with someone that's holding a weapon against you." She hissed.

They weren't sure what happened in that exact moment. But something had flown across the room, striking Mel in the hand, causing her to cry out in pain and in rage. At the same time, she ripped her hands away from the rope, causing Patrick, Noah, Sydney, and Lizzie to let out cries of surprise as they hurtled towards the floor. There was s distinct crack as they hit the ground in a heap, but they weren't sure who it came from.

"Mel, you ok?" Lissa turned to her sister, who was holding onto her wrist, the back of her hand very red. She nodded. "What happened?"

"I don't know," Mel shook her head. "But something just hit me in the fucking hand." She tightened her grip on her wrist. "It fucking hurts like shit man." She turned to Lissa and tossed her head back in the direction of their prisoners. "Make sure they don't get away.

Lissa nodded and turned back to them, but took a step back when she saw Dak and WayneWayne untying Patrick, Noah, and Sydney. Rhuben had already grabbed Patrick under the arm and lifted him to his feet, holding his weight across her shoulders. Riley was pulling the others to their feet.

"NO!" Mel and Lissa screeched at the top of their lungs. The sound was so piercing that everyone stopped, wanting to put their hands over their ears, but they knew that they had to keep going or they wouldn't be able to get out. "YOU'RE NOT LEAVING!"

"Give it up," Riley said as she helped Lizzie over to her brother. "The police are already outside, and they're waiting to come in here," she held up her phone, which showed that a call was being made. "Make any sudden movements and you'll have a SWAT team with guys pointed in your faces." She waited as Lissa turned to Mel, slowly lowering her knife to the floor.

Their shoulders slumped, knowing that they were defeated.

They had risked everything that they wanted; all for the chance at love, and it just came back and bit them in the ass.

Lissa tossed her knife to the floor before walking over to her twin and wrapping her arms around her shoulders.

* * *

"So how did you find us?" Sydney asked from where he was sitting on the edge of Patrick's bed, being careful not to bump his injured leg. He turned and looked at Dak, WayneWayne, Riley, and Rhuben. "It took you about 40 minutes to get there, I wasn't sure if Pat got a text out to you."

"He didn't apparently," Dak said from where he was sitting by Lizzie's bed, holding onto her hand. They were all in the hospital, running down time as visiting hours were going to end soon. Patrick's leg had been bandaged up pretty quickly, but Lizzie had broken her foot on the fall back to the floor. "We never got a text."

Noah's eyebrows rose in confusion. "Then how'd you find us."

"Rhu figured it out, actually," WayneWayne replied. "With the help of Sydney of course."

"Of course." Patrick rolled his eyes.

"It wasn't that hard," Rhuben shrugged her shoulders modestly, pulling her hair behind her ears. "I mean, since you guys were only gone from Riles for about 10 seconds, there was no way that you got back to the hotel that fast, so we knew that you were taken. And you also couldn't have been taken by one person, so we knew that there had to be someone else that helped, it was then that we knew that "Melissa" was two people." Sydney nodded, kicking his legs back and forth. "I also noticed a scrape through a patch of mud, and knowing that you guys drag your feet whenever you're scared and you're being moved, that it was one of you." She moved over to Patrick's bed and grabbed onto Noah's foot, lifting up his right ankle, showing a smear of mud on the back of his right shoe.

Noah gave a sheepish smile as Rhuben lowered his foot; tossing his hair out of his face. He leaned back against the pillows that were on his bed, glancing over at Patrick. He could tell, without Patrick even having to move, that he was anxious. Anything hospital or needle related and he wanted to jump out of his skin. The fact that all of his friends were around him relaxed him a little bit, but not much.

"But, there was _one_ tiny thing that made her figure out where you guys have gone," Riley said, holding her thumb and index finger an inch apart. "And it was a leftover trail."

"Of what?" Lizzie asked eyes wide with curiosity.

Rhuben chuckled. "The stickers off of a dole banana, and there's only one boy that I know that likes bananas so much." She reached out and tickled Sydney under the chin, causing him to laugh and push her hand away.

"I'm glad I could help." He smiled and then blinked. "But what did you do to get Mel to let go of the rope, something hit her hand." He said.

"Oh," WayneWayne smiled and reached out, rubbing Riley's back. "She threw a rock at her."

"Hey," Riley shrugged. "I don't like baseball for nothing." She chuckled. "So, yeah, that's basically the tale of our little adventure tonight."

"And Ronan knows?" Patrick asked, worry evident in his voice.

"Mhm," Dak nodded. "And the police, but they're going to try their hardest to keep this out of the media, except for the whole stalking thing. Because that's something that fans and other celebrities need to know about, so they know what to do if it happens to them."

Silence filled the room. Everyone was thinking the same thing. They had heard so many stories about celebrities being stalked in Hollywood. They heard about Uma Thurman, Miley Cyrus, Mila Kunis, Anna Kournikova, Conan O'Brien, and even Rebecca Schaeffer's stalkers. People that seemed too innocent, that just wanted to be with the celebrity so badly that made bad decision that put the others in danger. One had even ended up being murdered. If Mel and Lissa had been a little bit more insane, or had a bit more strategic about their plan, who could tell what could have happened?

"So the guys are going to be here this weekend," WayneWayne said as he stretched his arms over his head. He rolled his shoulders and leaned forward on the back of the chair that he was sitting on. "Should we tell them what happened?"

"Please," Lizzie rolled her eyes. "They were the ones that decided to go and do a tour. They're the ones that missed this," she smiled a little as she tilted her head to the side, slowly brushing her hair with her fingers. It was her tell-tale sign that she had a mischievous idea. "I say we don't tell them."

"They're going to find out anyway," Patrick pointed out. He then flashed a toothy smile over to his sisters. "If Jo's not too busy gushing over you and your boyfriends I mean."

Riley and Rhuben just rolled their eyes.

"I'm sorry," Dr. Morrison walked back into the room, giving a gentle smile. "But I'm going to have to ask you guys to leave, visiting hours are over and these two need their rest."

"Alright," Dak got to his feet and gave his sister a kiss on the cheek before pulling her blankets up to her chest and tucking her into the bed. "I've called Mom and Dad and they're going to be here soon, but you'll probably only see them tomorrow morning." He held ups his fist. "Get better."

"I will," Lizzie replied with a smile, bumping her fist against his.

Riley, Rhuben, Noah, and Sydney quickly said goodbye to Patrick, trying to reassure him as much as possible that he would be fine, knowing that he hated doctors, hospitals, and needles. But knowing that they couldn't stay, Patrick was trying t put on a brave face, even though they knew he was worried to death. They followed Dak and WayneWayne out of the room and down to the lobby, where they were going to meet up with Ronan so he could take them back to the hotel.

"So," Dak rubbed his hands together before putting his arm around Rhuben's shoulders. "How are we going to explain this to everyone?"

"Hm," WayneWayne pretended to rub his chin as he reached down and grabbed onto Riley's hand. "We'll think of something." He replied.

**THE END**

* * *

**A/N: **I'm sorry guys, this story started out as being one of my longer ones, but then when I made it that Patrick, Noah, Sydney, and Lizzie were taken in the last chapter; I realized that there wasn't much left for the story to do. The only thing I COULD do was make shorter chapters, but has more updates, with Dak, WayneWayne, Riley, and Rhuben going to find them. But then I figured I could get it done in this chapter. I HOPE that I didn't leave any loose ends and that I answered everything.

I bet you think that them getting into the warehouse and everything was anti-climactic, but they're teenagers without guns, so I didn't see that there would be too much violence or anything in the story. And it was a way for me to write a story that was focused more on mystery than anything else. So I at least hoped that you liked that aspect of it. I might do an epilogue.

So, sorry that the end really snuck up on you guys, but I felt that it was the best way to go. I'm so glad that you all enjoyed it so much and I'm thankful for those that reviewed, favorites, and alerted the story. It started out with a good idea, it WAS going to be longer, but as I wrote each chapter, I basically screwed myself for making it a long story. So I'm apologizing once again, but I'm glad that you took the time to read it. I'm gonna wait a bit before I upload a new story and when I do, it'll either be one called 'Twin Trouble' or 'Someone Like You'.

Thanks again!

Cheers,

-Riles


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